Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has fired two deputy heads of the country's statistical institute, writes Ahval.

Their dismissal was the latest in a purge of the institution tasked with calculating key economic data, including inflation, foreign trade and gross domestic product.

The president fired and replaced the head of the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) at the end of January. In total, TÜİK has changed 5 leaders since September 2018, two months after Turkey moved from a parliamentary democracy to a presidential system of government.

TÜİK has come under fire from both the government and the political opposition for reporting on inflation and other key economic indicators. Opinion polls last year showed that most Turks did not believe TÜİK's published data on consumer price inflation, believing it to be much higher than officially reported. Annual inflation accelerated to 54.4 percent in February, the highest in two decades.

Erdogan also replaced the organization's regional leaders.

The Turkish president has also replaced three of the country's central bank governors in less than three years. In September, the central bank acted on Erdogan's orders and began to cut interest rates despite soaring inflation. The base rate is now 14 percent, up from 19 percent in August.