The 44-year-old former Wall Street financial official assumed this position in early June after the re-election of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, making her the first woman to hold it.
Turkish newspapers reported that an office, a service car, and bodyguards were allocated to the governor’s father, Erol Erkan, whom “no one dares to oppose.”
Basra Bozkurt, a former employee at the bank, told the opposition newspaper Sozcu this week: “She was fired on the orders of her father. There are videos showing him coming to the bank every day in the company car, giving orders to the employees, and he does not have any authority to do so.”
Bozkurt was fired based on an order from the governor's father, who does not hold any official position at the bank, because she refused to work outside working hours, according to Sozcu, who published a copy of the complaint that Bozkurt says she sent to the Turkish presidency.
The Turkish-language channel Deutsche Welle also quoted another employee who preferred to remain anonymous, saying, “Erol Erkan interferes in the work of the administrative departments and human resources and gives them direct instructions. The employees working on the management floor suffer from harassment.”
Arkan rejected these accusations, denouncing “information that is contrary to reality and intentional and may tarnish the reputation of our bank.”
The governor also threatened on Friday on the “X” website to file a complaint with the judiciary against “those responsible for false information.”
Erkan lived for two decades in the United States, where she studied before being appointed to Ankara as part of a team of specially trained Wall Street economists tasked with getting Turkey out of the crisis after inflation reached 65 percent in 2023.
She angered Erdogan when she told a Turkish newspaper in December that she was forced to return and live with her parents with her children and husband, due to inflation and high real estate prices in Turkey, according to observers.
Neither Erdogan nor Economy Minister Mehmet Simsek commented on the accusations leveled against Erkan.
#governor #Turkish #Central #Bank #accused #favoring #family