Controversies surrounding Turkey’s sovereign wealth fund have only grown since its creation four years ago amid swirling questions about its jumbled legal status, dubious purposes and exemption from public auditing.

The fund — created hastily in 2016 — was back in the spotlight in the first days of 2021 as 75 million liras (some $10 million) in prizes from the New Year’s Eve lottery, won by unsold tickets, were transferred to the fund, which holds the license rights of the national lottery. The transfer triggered a social media campaign, backed by celebrities and opposition leaders, urging Ankara to use the money for the ultra-expensive treatment of infants with a deadly neuromuscular disease. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who chairs the fund, reacted angrily, slamming the campaign as “immoral” for portraying the government’s health care measures as insufficient.

Only a few weeks earlier, the fund was under fire for selling 10% of the Borsa Istanbul stock exchange, a company in its portfolio, to its Qatari counterpart as part of a series of deals with the wealthy Gulf emirate, Erdogan’s prime regional ally. And the fund’s exemption from public auditing remains a heated topic in parliament. 

The fund’s portfolio contains 20 public enterprises, some licenses and an array of immovable public properties. But in reality, it hardly possesses any wealth. Most of the entities in its portfolio remain attached to the Treasury and Finance Ministry or other ministries, and any revenues they generate go to the central government budget. Similarly, any capital decreases or losses they incur are covered from the same budget. Even more intriguingly, the fund, which has a company status, is beyond the auditing authority of the Court of Accounts, Turkey’s top public auditor, unlike the enterprises and banks whose shares it holds.