By: Sainabou Sambou
Fishmongers in Bakau, especially those engaged in the regular smoking of fish have urged the government to renovate their smokehouse facility.
The structure which currently houses the smokehouse is old, unroofed and lacks basic social amenities like water and electricity. According to the women, the current structure has been in existence since The Gambia’s First Republic.
Fatou Kujabi is one of the women who smoke fish regularly, she revealed that the conditions under which they trade are quite poor indicating that they have had to cope with selling fish for over a year without having a roof over their head. Therefore, they have decided to call on the government to help them.
“The current smokehouse we have is not good, it was destroyed by heavy winds during the rainy season. It has been two years since this house was destroyed by the wind. We have sought support from different stakeholders but none of them has shown up,” Fatou said.
Speaking about sales she noted that business is slow, and even when they buy fish to the tune of ten thousand dalasis (D10,000) reselling it to make profit is almost impossible.
“This year everything is hard on us, before the fishermen use to give us fish to sell and after selling it, we give them their money but nothing of such is happening now.
In previous years we will never buy a basket of fish for four thousand dalasis (D 4,000) but now we are buying it at four thousand five hundred dalasis (D4,500) and even more sometimes.”
She added that a basket of Catfish now sells at nine thousand dalasis (D9,000) but sometimes it can even cost ten thousand dalasis (D10,000)
“If you but Catfish for ten thousand dalasis it would be difficult for you to make profit from the sales. Sometimes the money you use to buy the fish is not even recovered after sales.”
Fatou Jammeh is another fishmonger who regularly smokes her fish before selling it. Like other fishmongers, she confirmed that sales are very low and they continue to sell under very difficult conditions.
“We have sat here for five days without having fish because the fishermen say the wind is too much and they cannot go to Sea,” she said.
According to her a basket of Bonga Fish is now bought on wholesale at one thousand dalasis (D1,000) and like Catfish, it is difficult to make profit when resold.
Another challenge she identified is the unavailability of a tap where they could wash up when they are done selling.
“We would like to have a tap here too, so when we are done smoking our fish, we can have a bath before we go home. We are normally at the beach until late at night and we don’t even have electricity in our smokehouse,” she said.
She appealed to the government to come to their rescue as they are affected by both the rain and sun.
“We work in the sun and during the raining season we find it difficult to do our work due to the poor condition of the smokehouse,” she lamented.
