'Paperless Parliament Project' aims to save $70,000

ANKARA

The "Paperless Parliament Project" launched at the Turkish Parliament aims to save 76 percent of paper expenses in a legislative term.

Within the scope of the project, initiated under the leadership of Parliament Speaker Numan Kurtulmuş, the number of documents printed in the parliament has been updated in order to ensure the efficient use of public resources and reduce paper waste.

As a result, the number of copies of the justification and text of the bill, reports of the subcommittees, documents containing opposing opinions, and the annual audit reports of some commissions have been updated.

Previously, in accordance with the Parliamentary Rules of Procedure, 805 copies of the committee reports were printed and distributed to MPs, political party groups and administrative organizational units before they were discussed in the parliament.

The sequence numbers, which are also published on the institution's website and mobile application, are also sent to MPs' e-mails, and this process will continue.

In accordance with the project initiated by Kurtulmuş's instructions as part of the austerity measures, the number of printed copies of each sequence number was reduced to 195 with the approval of the political party groups. This will save three out of every four sheets of paper used in the parliament.

It is estimated that the cost to the budget of more than 23 million pages used to print 805 copies of each desk issue in a legislative period is $93,000, and by reducing the number of pages to 195, the number of pages will be reduced to approximately 5.6 million.

In this case, the amount allocated from the parliamentary budget for this purpose would be $21,500, thus saving $70,000.

It was learned that Kurtulmuş gave instructions to make savings in different items in the parliament.