Istanbul municipality under fire for defunct bread factory

EKREM İmamoğlu likes to boast how Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (İBB) provides cheap bread through its Halk Ekmek (People’s Bread) kiosks across the city. Yet, the mayor of Türkiye’s most populated city found himself in hot water over a recently inaugurated bread factory.

The Ahmet İsvan People’s Bread factory, named after a late politician who pioneered the cheap bread concept for the poor, was inaugurated in a spectacular ceremony by İmamoğlu and his Republican People’s Party (CHP) Chairperson Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu in July, in far-flung Hadımköy district. But since then, not a single loaf of bread was produced at the factory, members of the municipality’s assembly say.

The Sabah newspaper recently published photographs of the factory where machinery stood idle with workers nowhere to be seen. Addressing a meeting of the assembly earlier this week, Tarık Balyalı, a CHP representative at the assembly, claimed the factory was “on a trial run,” while opposition members slammed the municipality for deceiving people.

Ömer Çetinkaya, an assembly member from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party), said in an assembly session earlier this week that the construction of the factory began in 2018, one year before İmamoğlu won the election, and while the AK Party was in charge of the municipality. “İmamoğlu himself (then an assembly member) voted no against the municipality’s request to seek funds for its construction. Still, the factory’s construction was largely completed and all machinery was purchased before the 2019 elections (later won by İmamoğlu). But it slowed down after the elections and finally opened in July after three years. But we see no bread was produced since then,” he said.

Çetinkaya blasted what he called a “deception” of the public. “They apparently brought in bread and other products from other factories, just for the opening ceremony, to trick people to think that the factory is actually producing them. We see the municipality is fine with lying to the public,” he criticized. Çetinkaya also said the municipality resorted to “a campaign of misperception” claiming that people were “forced to line up outside Halk Ekmek kiosks” allegedly due to the closure of kiosks by the government. “It is political manipulation. On the other hand, we see the factory is not working. There is nothing working there,” he said.

For his part, Balyalı said the factory had a large capacity but the current machinery “needed to be adjusted.”