Fish prices up as cold weather lowers supply

Fishing Officer at the market Asha Zewe told the ‘Daily News’ that fish prices have increased due to the low supply as they become scarce in cold weather.

The problem is compounded by lack of modern fishing equipment among fishermen, meaning with poor facilities they cannot increase their catch in cold weather.

Moreover, she added that fishers are getting a hard time in their activities especially due to the climatic changes, this is because they have poor fishing equipment and this leads to small availability of fish.

“The supply of fish is low and the demand is high which has affected the prices of fish whereby the prices have gone high com pared to the past month,” she said.

She said the prices of fish have increased depending on their type whereby a 20kg of sardines has increased to 60,000/- from 30,000/- and a 20kg of ‘Kibua’ has increased to 85,000/- from 60,000/-.

On the other hand, she added that the price of Changu fish has remained constant at 120,000/- per 20kgs just like other past months because this type of fish is very rare to get.

According to her, apart from fish scarcity another challenge was a rise in price for gas which is used in processing the fish. Price for a 36kg gas jar has increased to 105,000/- from 85,000/- increasing the cost of preparing the fish.

“The fish sellers pay 5 per cent of tariffs according their sales of the day thus the more you sell, the higher the tariff,” she noted.

SOURCE: DAILY NEWS

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