CHP deputy questions key graft scandal figure’s export award

ANKARA

CİHAN photo

A deputy from the Republican People’s Party (CHP) has filed a parliamentary question to Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekçi over how businessman Reza Zarrab, who was embroiled in Turkey’s huge graft probe that went public in December 2013, was awarded for the high export performance of his company, Volgam Gıda.

CHP İzmir deputy Musa Çam questioned how Zarrab was awarded for his company’s contributions to Turkey’s jewelry exports in 2014, presented by Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmuş, Zeybekci and Turkey’s Exporters’ Assembly (TİM) President Mehmet Büyükekşi. 

Volgam Gıda became Turkey’s 13th largest exporter in 2014 with exports worth around $847 million in the TİM list of 1,000 top exporters.

In this regard, Çam said he wanted to learn how many factories Zarrab had to produce such a large volume of exports, where these factories were located and how many people these factories employed in his parliamentary question to Zeybekci. 

Çam also asked how much taxes the company paid to the state in 2014 and the amount of exports the company made in 2012, 2013 and 2014, as well as 2015. 

He also asked to learn by whom the company was established. 

Speaking to reporters after the award ceremony, Kurtulmuş had said he wouldn’t have gone to the ceremony if he had known what would be involved. 

“When we went to the award ceremony yesterday [June 21], more precisely, when we went to the meeting, we didn’t know to whom we would give awards and which minister would give awards to whom,” Kurtulmuş said, emphasizing he didn’t know Zarrab at all. According to his words, Kurtulmuş wouldn’t even have recognized Zarrab if he had seen him on the road.

Çam asked whether Zeybekci agreed with Kurtulmuş about this issue.