Two different treatments for debt: Ziraat Bank is ruthless with farmers, patient with Demirören

While farmers are forced to sell their products in the field for less than their cost, they are experiencing heavy economic losses due to factors such as fuel price hikes and agricultural frost. Ziraat Bank, which quickly initiates legal processes against producers who delay their debt payments even for a short time, is once again at the center of controversy over the loan it provided to the Demirören Group, which has not been collected for a long time.

The entire loan provided by Ziraat Bank to the Demirören Group during the acquisition of the Doğan Group has not been recovered to date. In a presentation he made at the Grand National Assembly of Turkey this year, Bank General Manager Alparslan Çakar announced that 890 million dollars of the debt exceeding 1 billion dollars of the group, chaired by Yıldırım Demirören, had been collected over the last 7 years. With this statement, it was officially revealed that more than 110 million dollars of debt is still unpaid.

According to the report in Sözcü, CHP Deputy Chairman Burhanettin Bulut, who reacted to the issue, reminded that the Court of Accounts reports contained remarkable findings regarding the financial structure of the Demirören Group. Stating that the report emphasized that the group's income-generating capacity is weak, it has exhausted its equity, and it is under a high financial debt burden, Bulut conveyed that assessments were made that "all kinds of measures, including legal follow-up, should be taken quickly" for this reason. Criticizing the fact that no steps have been taken despite all these warnings, Bulut used the expression, "An invisible hand is protecting Demirören's loan."