Turkey’s main opposition party has said the government’s reported plan to privatize two Bosporus bridges and seven state-owned highways for 25 years would amount to a pre-election, cash-raising move that could cost the public at least $48 billion.
Deniz Yavuzyılmaz, deputy chair of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), said operating rights for the 15 July Martyrs Bridge and the Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge, along with seven highways owned by the General Directorate of Highways (KGM), were being prepared for transfer to private companies.
Citing the KGM’s 2026 Performance Program, Yavuzyılmaz said the two bridges and seven highways generated a net public profit of $600 million in 2025. Projected over 25 years, he said, that would amount to approximately $15 billion in revenue for the state.
İşte AKP’nin sinsi özelleştirme planı❗️
Yerlilik ve millilik nutukları atan AKP;
🔴Kamuya ait 2 Boğaz Köprüsü ve 7 Otoyolun, 25 yıllığına özelleştirilmesi işinin fizibilitesini Kanadalı bir şirkete, finansman çalışmasını da İngiliz bir şirkete yaptırıyor.
🔴Karayolları Genel…
— Deniz Yavuzyılmaz (@yavuzyilmazd) February 10, 2026
He claimed that under privatization the assets would be transferred below their long-term revenue potential and that companies would raise tolls over time, generating an additional $33 billion in profit. “As a result, at least $48 billion will be transferred from citizens’ pockets to these companies over 25 years,” he wrote in a post on X.
The politician’s claims follow a Bloomberg report last week that Turkey had hired the London-based consulting firm EY, previously known as Ernst & Young, to advise on the planned sale of operating rights for the two bridges and a broader network of toll highways. The Canada-based BTY Group was appointed as technical adviser, according to the report, which cited unnamed sources familiar with the matter.
According to Yavuzyılmaz, the companies awarded the tender would finance the deal with 80 percent foreign loans and 20 percent equity, backed by Treasury debt-assumption guarantees.
He said that even if a future government were to cancel the privatization, the Treasury would remain liable for those loans, potentially exposing public assets to foreign creditors.
Turkey has previously attempted to privatize the bridges and highways. A tender in 2012 covering both bridges and roughly 2,000 kilometers of roads produced a winning bid of $5.7 billion but later collapsed after President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, then prime minister, said selling the assets for less than $7 billion would amount to “treason.”
The two bridges are among the busiest transport links in the country. Transport Minister Abdulkadir Uraloğlu said in July that about 430,000 vehicles cross them daily. Under current pricing, a standard passenger car pays a toll of 59 Turkish lira, or about $1.36, each way.
EY is one of the world’s four largest accounting and consulting firms and has previously worked on bridge, highway and hospital projects in Turkey, according to information published on its website.