Collapse during distribution of basic commodities in Turkey

"We have decided to buy the potatoes and onions that are left in storage and distribute them to people in need". With these words Turkish President Recep Tayipp Erdogan announced last Tuesday the distribution of vegetables to poor families in Turkey. According to government sources, each poor citizen will receive 10 kg of onions and 20 kg of potatoes.

This week, the authorities began the process of distributing some 1,200,000 tonnes of potatoes and 300,000 tonnes of onions to Turkey's towns and cities facing the greatest economic hardship. Erdogan's aim is to support agricultural producers in the midst of the crisis, but they have been forced to sell their surplus produce at cost price, with little or no profit margin.

Throughout the delivery, a series of images have emerged that perfectly reflect the delicate situation of shortages in Turkey. On Monday, a crowd of people surrounded the delivery vehicle in Diyarbakır, a Kurdish-majority town in the southwest of the country, to deliver basic goods. Residents of Bağlar district, one of the city's neighbourhoods, surrounded the delivery truck en masse amidst the din to ask for food.

But the starkest scene took place this weekend in the Eyyübiye district of Sanliurfa province. The desperation of Turkish citizens materialised in the form of a stampede around the delivery vehicle in the midst of the chaos to get government food. Moreover, the authorities did not take any measures against COVID-19 during the distribution process, so we have seen dozens of people gathered without separation. 

"The pictures of the distribution of potatoes in Eyyübiye are a summary of the situation in which the people find themselves", said Tuncay Özkan, the deputy of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP). However, the government has tried to distance itself from the events. The Diyarbakır Governor's Office issued a statement on Monday clarifying that the delivery of food was not taking place in the streets, but in homes.

The Ministry of Agriculture, which is in charge of deploying the food distribution campaign, tried to justify the devastating images through local offices. The agency claimed that "four to five people" attacked the delivery vehicle and removed bags of potatoes, and that the officials' intention was to distribute them house to house. President Erdogan has added that more food will be distributed throughout the month of Ramadan.

Turkey's economy faces the threat of inflation a month after Erdogan's dismissal of Naci Agbal, the former governor of Turkey's central bank and former finance minister. His successor, Sahap Kavcioglu, has pledged that there will be no significant changes to the agency's economic policies, despite his harsh criticism of his predecessor. 

The Turkish central bank said after Kavcioglu's arrival that rates would remain above inflation until it is clear that price pressures are easing. Erdogan has rarely called for monetary stimulus to aid economic recovery, and has fired three bank chiefs in two years, decisions that have eroded the institution's credibility.

Erdogan sacked Agbal in part because he was uncomfortable with the bank's investigation into some $128 billion in foreign currency sales made during his son-in-law Berat Albayrak's tenure as finance minister, according to Reuters. Turkey's Erdogan-led opposition has pressed the government to account for the money they claim has disappeared from the central bank's reserves.

Against this backdrop, Turkey faces an unemployment rate of over 14 per cent, with unemployment among the under-25s rising to 26 per cent. The authorities registered 250,000 new unemployed in February, bringing the total number of unemployed to 4.23 million. In February, the data also showed an annual inflation rate of 15.61%.