As a former municipal employee, I can say this clearly: In order to understand the municipal scandals that are being uncovered today, we must first understand what municipalities really are. Because municipalities are not just institutions that collect garbage, build sidewalks and organize parks, as most people think. Municipalities are, in fact, semi-public structures, but at the same time they have enormous economic power.
The most critical pillar of this power is municipal subsidiary companies. Through these companies, municipalities do not only carry out classical services; they can operate in a wide range of sectors, from tourism to food, cafeterias, organizations and even industry. Theoretically, a municipality can be present in many sectors, from cement production to energy, from fuel oil to logistics. The budget of many municipalities can be larger than that of a small African state.
Let me explain this with the example of Beşiktaş.
Besiktas Municipality: Huge Budget, Deep Contradictions
The economic power of a municipality is measured not only by the taxes it collects but also by the cash flow it manages. The budget of Beşiktaş Municipality is larger than the total budget of many provinces in Anatolia. It may even be larger than that of a poor African country.
- Budget Folding: The budget set at 3 billion 991 million TL for 2024 has reached 5 billion 966 million TL for 2025 and the estimated budget for 2026 has reached 5 billion 887 million TL.
- Expenditure Items: The most striking point in the 2026 budget is that while personnel expenditures remained around 601 million TL, “Expenditures for the Purchase of Goods and Services” reached a huge figure of 4 billion 398 million TL.
Moreover, this situation is not limited to metropolitan cities. The budget of Uşak Municipality for 2026 has been approved as 5 billion TL. When budgets reach these levels even in Uşak, a medium-sized city in Anatolia, it becomes clear how much of an economic power municipalities have become.
These examples show us this: The issue is not the amount of money in the coffers, but the prioritization of that money. If the budget flows into obscure items under the name of “service procurement” before the sweat of the workers“ brow, then that structure has gone from being ”the budget of a small state“ to an ”uncontrolled financial center". According to open sources, Aziz İhsan Aktaş has a receivable of 1 billion 200 million TL from Beşiktaş Municipality. Municipality officials have not issued a statement denying this. It is clear how and by whom these huge sums of money are being managed.
In municipalities, if the huge budgets collected by taxpaying citizens residing in that district or province are not returned to those citizens in the form of services, then there is a serious problem. Problems become inevitable when elected mayors are without merit. Exactly one year ago, when I was a guest as a labor leader on the “World of Labor” program on a national channel, I said the same thing: They become “people who behave like the boss of a holding company and have the budget of a small state”. In the hands of unqualified people, these problems are becoming more and more evident.
What does that mean?
It means this: The moment a mayor is elected, he is not just a public administrator. He or she also sits at the top of a structure that manages multi-billion budgets and makes huge economic decisions through subsidiary companies. In other words, in a sense, an elected mayor has the authority to act like the boss of a conglomerate overnight.
And this is exactly where the problem starts. Because managing such a large economic power requires not only political skill but also a serious institutional mind, ethical understanding and a culture of control. If this power falls into the hands of people who have not developed themselves, lack merit or cannot control their ego, the picture that emerges is unfortunately not surprising.
This is the reason why the events we call “scandals” today have come to light. The problem is not only the individuals, but also the system that gives them such an uncontrolled space on such a scale. When the multi-billion budgets of municipal subsidiaries are not controlled with sufficient transparency and strong oversight mechanisms, the line between public funds and private interests quickly blurs. And from that point on, what happens is no longer an “exception” but a natural consequence of the system.
When I was working on the union side, I saw this clearly: This economic structure inside the municipalities is much more complex and much larger than it appears from the outside. And if this structure is not managed properly, it turns into a mechanism that affects not only the employees but also the resources that come directly out of the pockets of the people.
Therefore, the issue is not just a matter of a “scandal”. It is about how local governments have become such large economic actors and why, despite this, they have not been able to establish an equally strong oversight system.
In conclusion, the following should be said: Municipalities are not small structures. They are like small states. And small states should not be run by people with small character, a small state budget requires big responsibility.