Prices doubled due to “total fight against inflation”

SAFAKNA TURKEY – The economic crisis in Turkey has made almost all sectors of society from 7 to 70 “economists”. Because a significant part of the population is trying to earn a living on the basis of a penny.

As long as citizens are in this situation, the government claims that they will overcome the cost of living with slogans and temporary solutions. From time to time “outside forces” are responsible for today’s picture.

“We have not and will not pressure citizens with inflation”, “We will break the inflationary backbone”, “We will remove the soap bubble, bloat and slime in prices”, “Inflation will fall…” These are the most frequently repeated statements of the AKP government, especially in the recent period.

SEP representatives, who have been speaking to the public with similar rhetoric for years, recently launched a campaign called “Total fight against inflation”, in which points of sale were opened in the busiest squares of large cities. carried out through some TV channels and newspapers.

In the same days, raids were carried out on some potato and onion warehouses throughout Turkey, and some warehouse owners and traders were accused of being “terrorists”.

While there were long queues in front of similarly located outlets, the government said it was not the “absence” but the “presence” of a queue.

Despite months and years of fighting inflation with similar methods and rhetoric, prices are rising exponentially.

In those days, onions were sold at 2 Turkish lira per kilogram, 2 Turkish lira for potatoes, 4.5 Turkish lira for eggplant, and 6 Turkish lira for peppers. As of the first week of February, the weight of eggplant is 35 Turkish Lira, potatoes 9 Turkish Lira, onions 15 Turkish Lira and peppers 32 Turkish Lira. In fact, shallots cost 39 Turkish liras per kilo.

The current prices at the Gülbach market closest to the same square are as follows: Eggplants 25 Turkish Lira per kilogram, Potatoes 15 Turkish Lira per kilogram, Onions 15 Turkish Lira per kilogram, Peppers 36 Turkish Lira per kilogram.

In this process, although prices doubled, inflation could not be stopped. According to TURKSTAT, consumer prices in January 2019 increased by 1.06 percent compared to the previous month and by 17.16 percent year on year.

According to TUIK, after 4 years of “total fight against inflation”, in January 2023, consumer prices rose by 6.65 percent per month and by 57.68 percent per year. ENAG, on the other hand, posted 9.26 percent monthly inflation and 121.62 percent annual inflation.

So, is the government successfully waging a total fight against inflation, which it has been talking about for years? This question is in the same box; We asked the population in Mecidiyekoy where a point of sale was opened in 2019. Here are the responses we received:

“BOTTOM OF FAIL”

Jahit Sayin: “Is it not clear from practice whether this is successful or not? Go to the market, where it is clear where the potatoes and onions come from, it is already clear where everything is from. What success? There is no success, it is the bottom of failure. We are not in a position to say, “God bless you.” As a citizen, I wonder how we could have been brought to a worse situation than this, I can’t find an answer. Call it incompetence or incompetence. I would like the prices of that day to remain, the salaries of civil servants and pensioners did not increase. What if they didn’t raise wages or the products we use.”

“FROM WEIGHT TO GRAIN”

Beytulla Yildiz: “They did not succeed. A 100% increase? Time travel, time travel for everything… No way. Let our country grow and develop, let other countries know our strength, but the poor cannot be crushed here. Right now they are crushing it when I go, I buy 1-2 orange tangerines in front of the markets and eat like that. Instead of saying “5 kilos of that”, “5 kilos of that”, people say “2 of these”, “3 of these”. He went from a pound to a grain.”

“IF IT WAS SUCCESSFUL, INFLATION DID NOT RISE”

Batukhan Aydin: “I don’t see any success. No matter how much they say or how much they ignore, there will be no success. If he had been successful, inflation would not have risen so much anyway. If you speak, then you will act, but in ours there are only words. Youth voting in the elections will be high, I hope it will improve.”

“THE PRODUCT HAS NO MONEY”

Gürbüz Ünal: “No, they are not successful on the surface. If inflation were low, prices would not be so high anyway. I am retired, my pension is only enough for electricity, water, telephone and contributions. There will be no more inflation. We still can’t go to the market, we used to buy 2 kg of potatoes, now we buy 1 kg of potatoes. Turkey’s economy has hit rock bottom. We have experienced this absence before, we would like it to be … We stood in line, but we had money in our pockets. We could get everything we wanted. Now there is a product, no money.”

“WHAT HAPPENS IN THE WORLD”

Yalcin Ugur: “They are not successful. It happens to the poor, the farmers, the minimum wage earners.”

Seyit Bey: “Mustafa Kemel Pasha left his beautiful homeland, but some came and used our religion, some came and used our homeland. They can make everything expensive, but our homeland is not cheap. They want to squander the Turkish nation, but this nation cannot be squandered.”

“THEY ARE NOT SUCCESSFUL, THIS IS THE TOPIC OF THE DISCUSSION”

Ms. Elif: “They are definitely not successful, this is a question far from being discussed. It doesn’t matter if you are pro-government or vice versa, or even apolitical, they are not successful. If they had been successful, this would not have happened. I think that the normative sell-off is a sham, anyway, such things are always done before the elections. I don’t know why we don’t see anything at normal times. For 20 years we have been run by the same people. If we haven’t gotten from one point to another in 20 years, or if the point we’ve reached is a much worse point, that’s debatable. My parents are civil servants, I really grew up in luxury, now I understand it.”

“THEY CAN’T SAY THAT THEY ARE SUCCESSFUL”

Mustafa Ar: “I have been listening to them every night since the beginning of the pandemic, they talk until the morning, but you cannot say that they are successful. He stays where he is. They just raise the minimum wage. As soon as we hear the news about raising the minimum wage, they start raising food as long as there are 45 days before we get paid. The raise melts before we see it. I can’t say that they were very successful. If you ask them, they will say: “This is the world in general”, but how true is this? It’s not something that can’t be prevented.”