Local spending to go high in election year

Erdinç Çelikkan ISTANBUL

Hürriyet photo

Turkish municipal elections slated for next year will expand local administration expenditures by 9.1 billion Turkish Liras, according to government estimates for 2013.

The combined expenditures will increase to 60.5 billion liras from this year’s estimate of 51.4 billion liras and produce a 1.2 billion liras deficit for 2013.

This year, the government expects to record a surplus of 1.1 billion liras in local administration budgets.

12 percent increase

The revenues of local administrations are estimated to hit 59.3 billion liras next year, while the figure for this year is expected to be 52.5 billion liras with an annual increase of 12.7 percent.

The increase may be signaling how municipalities will increase spending in order to woo more voters in local elections.

On the other hand, the government may cut local administrations’ shares of tax revenues from their existing debt accounts, which will help to maintain fiscal discipline.

The ratio of the central government’s current expenditures to the gross domestic product is estimated to increase by 0.2 points to 17.7 percent next year due to the expanded spending of municipalities.