CHP's Öztürkmen: 'The Ministry is keeping meat barons a state secret'

CHP's Öztürkmen, in a statement he made last month, shared the information: "Meat imports, which were triggered by propaganda claiming that citizens would eat cheap meat, have not lowered meat prices but are instead filling the coffers of meat barons. Live animals that the ESK imports for 4 dollars (128 TL) per kilogram reach our tables at a minimum price of 550 TL."

Öztürkmen used the following expressions:

With the established profiteering cycle, while the 300 percent profit margin in between goes into the pockets of meat barons, citizens still cannot even pass by the butcher or the market. Carcass meat dealers, instead of selling the dozens of trucks of meat they collect from the ESK at an average of 250 TL per kilogram to the public at a cheap price, distribute it under the table to meat traders. Companies that do their business honestly are both complaining about the situation and are victims.

While the ESK keeps the names of the major companies to which it gives imported animals and meat a state secret, the Competition Authority has not yet announced the 11 companies under scrutiny. The relationships of the companies sharing the imported meat with AKP politicians and former ministers are being discussed."

CLEAR QUESTIONS TO THE MINISTRY

This massive imported meat profiteering scheme, which CHP Gaziantep MP Hasan Öztürkmen announced last month, had become a major topic of discussion.

Subsequently, Öztürkmen brought the major profiteering scheme to the Parliament's agenda, and with a parliamentary question he submitted in May, he requested answers to the following questions from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, to which the ESK is affiliated:

"1- How many tons of meat and live animals have been imported from abroad by the Meat and Milk Board under the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry between 01.05.2023 and 01.05.2024?

2- At what prices per kilogram were the imported meat and live animals purchased? At what price were they sold to buyers in Turkey?

3- Between 01.05.2023 and 01.05.2024, to which companies in Turkey were the imported meat and live animals sold, in what quantities, and at what prices?

4- During the same dates, how much of the imported meat was sold to markets and how much to distributors/intermediary companies?

5- Which companies were granted permission for live animal imports during the same dates, and how many tons of meat and live animals did they import?"

A NON-ANSWER!

A response to Öztürkmen's parliamentary question came from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. However, the Ministry did not answer any of the questions.

The response text, signed by Minister İbrahim Yumaklı, was limited to the following:

"(...) Within the scope of red meat market regulation, live butcher animals are distributed according to their capacity to all companies operating in the red meat industry (producing delicatessen products) that meet the conditions specified in the announcement published on the ESK's website and that have applied.

In addition to the institution's own sales stores, the sale of imported fresh carcass meat is carried out through Agricultural Credit Cooperative Markets, chain markets that are members of PERDER in Istanbul, Ankara, and Bursa, food industrialists (YESİDEF) and industrial food producers, meat industrialists, and butchers across the country, provided that it is sold at the prices determined by the ESK."

'THE MINISTRY'S JOB IS NOT TO ENRICH A HANDFUL OF MEAT BARONS'

CHP's Öztürkmen evaluated the Ministry's response to the parliamentary question as follows:

"As can be seen from the response, Minister Yumaklı has not answered any of our questions. They are keeping it a state secret which major companies the ESK shares the cheap meat and live animals it imports among, and at what price they are sold to them.

Those who raise the price of meat for the citizen in line are transferring million-dollar fortunes to certain large companies and chain markets in the background. The massive imports made do not provide cheap meat to the citizen, but they make a handful of meat barons even richer.

In summary, just so a handful of meat barons can earn millions of dollars, cattle imported by the state for 128 TL (4 dollars) reach the citizen's table as meat in its cheapest form (cubed meat) at an average of 550 TL. Businesses in the sector that do their job honestly insist that when this rent-seeking order is eliminated, citizens could buy meat for 230-250 TL. That is, half the price of today...

The duty of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry is not to make meat bosses even richer, but to ensure the citizen's access to cheap meat. More importantly, it is to protect our domestic livestock and producers by abandoning the meat import policy that deals a major blow to Turkish livestock farming and our local producers as soon as possible. It is to support our producers who are withdrawing from production, emptying their farms, and being forced to send their dairy animals to slaughter, and to accelerate domestic production.

According to estimates, 1 billion dollars, or approximately 34 billion TL, has been paid for imported meat and live animals in the last four months. We have made foreign farmers celebrate. We did not plan to transfer this resource as support to our local producers!

We are after this massive profiteering and the profiteers who both undermine domestic production and condemn our citizens to expensive meat, and we will pursue it to the end."

News Source: 12punto