According to a decision issued by the Council of Ministers on March 24, “the approval of the minister” is going to be sufficient for any cross-border duty without the tender process of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Commenting on the decision for soL, Kadir Sev asked “ Is the Ministry of Internal Affairs going to be assigned a duty for cross-border operations? Is a foreign country’s occupation targeted?
According to the Council of Ministers’ decision issued today, “the procurement of goods and services needed for domestic and international affairs within the scope of every kind of duty given by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and affiliated institutions” is going to be made with the approval of the minister without tender process and the required resources are going to be given by ministry or affiliated institutions.
Kadir Sev, a former auditor of Court of Auditors and member of the State Auditing Board of the Presidency, spoke to soL about the recent arrangement, stating that “according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs’ Article 3/b of Law no. 4734, goods, services and works procurement which are decided by the relevant ministry that these are related to the defence, security or intelligence or that these are required to be treated confidentially, or procurements requiring special security measures shall not be governed by the Public Procurement Law. However, being exempt from the Public Procurement Law doesn't mean procurements are to be made without any law. As a matter of fact, ‘Guidelines related to the tenders under the scope of Article 3/b of the Public Procurement Law no. 4734’ published by the Ministry of Defense on May 16, 2009, and by the Ministry of Internal Affairs on October 22, 2010, on the Official Gazette specified more flexible rules for the procurement.”
“Another article is added to the Guidelines in today’s Official Gazette and the obligation to submit to the Guidelines is lifted for the procurement of goods and services needed for domestic and international affairs within the scope of every kind of duty given by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and affiliated institutions,” says Sev and commented “according to the added article, the procurements for the cross-border operations can be made without tender or any other rule with only the approval of the minister of internal affairs.”
Emphasising how critical this arrangement is, Sev pointed out the following issues:
Is the Ministry of Internal Affairs going to be assigned a duty for cross-border operations?
If that is so, based on which law?
Is a foreign country’s occupation targeted?
Whereas “Guidelines” are proposed to be abided even during the extraordinary circumstances such as war and terror, why is this obligation lifted for the Ministry of Internal Affairs?
The law gives the authorization to arrange flexible rules for situations special to Administration. The article added to the Guidelines proposes not to abide any rule. Isn’t Administration using an authority not given by the law?
Today a news article is published on soL about the training of Free Syrian Police in Turkey. Could it be the case that this new arrangement is made to hide the expenses related to needs of these policies?
