Too expensive cucumbers: Turkish government punishes vegetable merchants
Before the local elections at the end of March, the Turkish government is punishing "greedy" vegetable traders with fines totalling two million Turkish lira (about 330,000 euros). The newspaper "Hürriyet" reported on Thursday that the government had ordered controls on markets because of excessive prices for fruit and vegetables. They had the purchase prices compared with the selling prices. A total of 88 companies had sold their products at too high a price, including cucumbers, garlic and potatoes.
The vegetable issue is growing into a neuralgic point of the election campaign. Turkey suffers from a high inflation rate, and the poor economic situation could cost President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's ruling AK party votes in the local elections. Food was particularly expensive. In January 2019 they cost on average 30.97 percent more than a year ago. Some vegetables cost up to 88 percent more. According to "Hürriyet", the representatives of the authorities want to
however, have discovered price markups of 100 to 800 percent.
The "free market economy", Erdogan thundered during an election speech in Denizli on Thursday, when he once again took up the topic. "Does someone else know that?"
The fines are a measure in the fight against "food terrorism", as Erdogan recently called it. Experts consider the crisis to be mostly homemade - the government likes to blame traders or "foreign forces". In mid-February it began selling vegetables at purchase prices in Ankara and Istanbul. Erdogan announced on Thursday that the action would be extended if prices did not fall./lsy/DP/fba (dpa)
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