The Ottoman Public Debt Administration (OPDA) (Ottoman Turkish: Düyun-u Umumiye-i Osmaniye Varidat-ı Muhassasa İdaresi, or simply Düyun-u Umumiye as it was popularly known), was a European-controlled organization that was established in 1881 to collect the payments which the Ottoman Empire owed to European companies in the Ottoman public debt. The OPDA became a vast, essentially independent bureaucracy within the Ottoman bureaucracy, run by the creditors and its governing council was packed with European government officials - including one representative each from British, French, German, Austrian, Italian, Dutch, and Ottoman creditors, and one representative from the Ottoman state. It employed 5,000 officials who collected taxes that were then turned over to the European creditors. At it