Türkiye's Court of Accounts has flagged a TL 94 million ($1.87 million) dessert contract at Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IBB), finding the city paid well above market rates for syrup-soaked treats like baklava, kadayıf and şekerpare — in some cases nearly four times what later tenders fetched.
A 2025 inspection report, made public in November 2026, zeroes in on a negotiated procurement for desserts during Ramadan, when municipalities hand out free food at fast-breaking dinners. Auditors say the municipality never built a realistic cost estimate: it based its price on quotes from just four companies, three of which were then invited to bid, and ignored the contract prices of earlier purchases of the same products.
The numbers are stark. Tel kadayıf was bought at TL 660 a unit against a later tender price of TL 168 — 3.9 times higher. Trileçe came in at TL 660 versus TL 225, cold baklava at TL 1,200 versus TL 506, and şekerpare at TL 460 against TL 202. Walnut kadayıf paid at TL 572 had cost TL 300 in a comparable procurement at the same time of year.
The red flags don't stop at pricing. The winning contractor's registered office was in Muş, a small eastern Turkish city, and it had just one insured employee during the entire contract. The deal banned subcontracting, yet auditors concluded the work was effectively carried out by a subcontractor — the same firm that had won the previous contract — since the contractor lacked production facilities. That means, in the court's view, the same supplier ended up supplying the same goods at higher prices.
IBB pushed back, arguing the negotiated deal covered Ramadan, with 72% of items in single-use packaging and about 70% individually portioned and boxed, driving up packaging, labour and logistics costs. It said cold baklava wasn't even on the menus and that sourcing from other manufacturers is normal in the food supply chain. The court wasn't convinced: unit prices were inflated even for items with no packaging requirements, and the municipality still bought 748.2 kilograms of cold baklava — more than TL 897,000 worth — for a product it said wasn't served.
The findings land at a sensitive moment, with IBB's former mayor already in custody on corruption charges, and the case is another marker of how procurement oversight works — or doesn't — in Turkish city government.
For travellers, this isn't a reason to skip Istanbul's legendary dessert culture. Baklava, kadayıf and sütlü nuriye remain some of the best-value treats in Europe, and the shop counters of Karaköy, Fatih and Kadıköy are far cheaper per slice than what the city was allegedly paying. But it's a useful reminder that public money spent on your iftar dinner may not have gone far — and a good excuse to buy your sweets straight from the source.
