CHP's İlgezdi challenges Minister Yumaklı over cheap meat: "Name the butchers who received it"

Gamze Akkuş İlgezdi, a deputy chair of Turkey's opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), has challenged Agriculture and Forestry Minister İbrahim Yumaklı over the government's claims about cheap meat supplies.

"Name the butcher shops you gave cheap meat to," İlgezdi said in a written statement, responding to Yumaklı's answer to a parliamentary question about why the Meat and Milk Institution had not supplied cheaper meat to butchers.

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Name the butcher shops you gave cheap meat to.

Yumaklı said the institution served consumers through its own stores and Tarım Kredi Cooperative Markets. He also said chain stores belonging to PERDER in Istanbul and Ankara supplied affordable meat and meat products to meat producers, industrial caterers and butchers across the country.

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The policies implemented by the Meat and Milk Institution in the name of regulating the market are destroying local tradespeople while enriching major chain stores.

İlgezdi said she had met with dozens of butchers who complained that they could not compete with chain markets selling cheaper meat. She also said she had checked the issue with leaders of butchers' chambers, who, she claimed, confirmed that the minister's account did not reflect the situation.

She accused the institution of pursuing a policy that enriched major supermarket chains while pushing local businesses out of the market. The process, she said, lacked transparency and fairness. She also criticized long queues for subsidized meat, saying citizens were forced to wait from early morning to buy one kilogram. İlgezdi said the ministry had failed to provide affordable meat to the public and was presenting nonexistent conditions as reality in its delayed response. She added that a minister had a duty to tell the public the truth.

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A minister is obliged to tell the truth to the people.