During the inspections, it was checked whether there was a difference between the price tag and the case price of the products, the date of change of the price tag and the previous price of the product. In addition, the origin and arrival price information of the fruits and vegetables in the grocery section were checked through the Market Registration System.
Istanbul Provincial Trade Director İsmail Menteşe told AA correspondent during the inspections carried out in Ümraniye that inspections are continuing in the areas of unfair pricing and stockpiling, both in line with the regulations under the Law No. 6502 on the Protection of Consumers and within the scope of the Law No. 6585 on the Regulation of Retail Trade.
Menteşe provided the following information about the inspections:
“During our inspections in July, we inspected 6,498 companies. Our colleagues examined a total of 85,464 products in these companies. During these inspections, we detected non-conformances to the legislation in a total of 9,751 products. We also initiated administrative procedures for the non-conformances we detected in these products. The equivalent of these amounts to approximately 34 million 254 thousand 454 liras. When we look at the distribution of these, we see that in 19 days, in July, as the personnel of the Istanbul Provincial Directorate of Trade, we inspected 2,132 restaurants and cafes. We observed 2,742 non-conformances during these inspections and initiated administrative procedures for these. The equivalent of these amounts to approximately 6 million 32 thousand 400 liras.”
Menteşe stated that inspections were carried out in 3,012 local and national markets in the 19-day period and that 70,693 products were examined.
Menteşe explained that during the inspections, information and documents were requested regarding the products for which an indescribable increase was observed between purchase and sale, and that these documents were first examined by the Provincial Directorate of Trade, and if an excessive increase was detected, they were directed to the Unfair Price Assessment Board within the General Directorate of Domestic Trade.
Menteşe, who said that the complaints sent to CİMER were also evaluated, said, “In July, 361 CİMER complaints were sent to our Provincial Directorate of Trade. We have conducted investigations on these. We have also initiated proceedings for 211 violations here. We requested information and documents regarding approximately 5,103 products in July regarding our inspections that we call unfair price increases. When we examined the documents received so far, we sent the products that we think have inexpressible increases to our Unfair Price Evaluation Board within our Ministry of Trade.”
DETECTION OF PRODUCTS WITHOUT IDENTIFICATION INFORMATION
Menteşe emphasized the importance of the tag information and stated that the tags, which are the identity cards of fruits and vegetables, are checked in the Wholesale Registration System.
Menteşe said that products without identification information were detected and noted the following:
“We detected 227 non-conformities in the first 19 days of July. We evaluate these as unfair price increases from our perspective and we are directing them to the relevant unit. The administrative transaction equivalent of these is around 13 million 983 thousand 654 liras. There were stockpiling complaints about 8 companies. We referred 2 suspicious issues related to that to the same board within our Ministry of Trade. There were complaints about around 101 bakeries. We inspected them. We also initiated proceedings against 34 bakeries. Therefore, as the Istanbul Provincial Directorate of Trade, we continue to do our best to protect the consumer.”
