Trade Minister Bolat shares information that penalties will be increased

Announcing that penalties for deceptive advertising, harmful products, and hoarding will be increased, Bolat said, "Our proposal for hoarding is to increase the upper limit to 11 million liras. Temporary closure is also among our proposals."

Trade Minister Ömer Bolat answered Hande Fırat's questions on the CNN Türk live broadcast.

Stating that intensive inspections regarding hoarding and black marketeering are continuing, here are the highlights from Bolat's statements:

"The pandemic crisis that broke out in 2020 caused incidents of hoarding and black marketeering, especially in food, to resurface. Like the rest of the world, we faced a high inflationary process. People who were bored during the quarantine period went out. In this situation, prices increased due to the excessive rise in demand.

In the Russia-Ukraine war, there was a 2-fold increase in energy prices and oil. Our citizens' civil servant salaries, minimum wages, and farmer allowances were increased above inflation.

Intensive inspections regarding hoarding and black marketeering have begun. The practices were put into effect quickly. We entered into a tough fight against prices in the automotive market. Inspections have also been intensified during our term."

"ANNOUNCED THE UPPER LIMIT OF THE PENALTY TO BE GIVEN TO HOARDERS"

"Penalties are being issued to those who engage in deceptive advertising and the sale of harmful products. We have worked on increasing the penalties. It will be sent to Parliament soon. In the lower limit application, it was 10 thousand liras in 2020. It became 52 thousand in 2024, and we requested it to be 80 thousand.

What is important is to implement the practices without compromise. The lower penalty limit for hoarding was 100 thousand, and we will increase this to 800 thousand liras. The upper limit is currently written as 2 million, and our proposal is to increase it to 11 million liras.

Temporary closure is also among our proposals. We have requested a closure penalty of up to 10 days."

News Source: 12punto