DEAR EDITOR,
Concerning the above heading I wish to reveal to the public about my concern on the above-mentioned issue.
Years after years the responsible authority had overlooked this matter, however to me it is one of the significant issues the responsible authority should take concern and deal with as soon as possible.
Perhaps before raising some reason why I have to call on the responsible authority to take concern about the issue I will put on some clarification here.
In the central market where the reef fish vendor located there are two group of people, first is the real group that run under the fishing industry in the country in which they purchase fresh reef fish from the province and bring their fish to Honiara and the second group is the black marketers who buy fish from the real fishermen or the real fresh fish vendor and re-sell them in the market as well.
Now the issue is the real fresh fish vendor had bought their fish from the local fishermen in provinces with huge amounts of money after they had to freight their eskies with quite a big amount of money in ships to reach Honiara.
The black marketers on the other hand than bought their best fish at $20 per pound and re-sell those fish at $15 or $16 per pound with their rocket scale that disturb the real fresh fish vendor in the sense that they lower their pound to trick the customer, while many customers do not even know that their scale is slack and can bring one little fish up to 2 pound while with the real reef fish vendor it might only up to 0.4 pound.
Thus, this is a big issue that the Town Council or the responsible authority must and quickly consider before it goes any further. Furthermore, this activity, if continued in the future, might cause enormous problems to our fishing industry in the country in terms of fresh reef fish in the sense that if these black marketers continue doing this and the fresh fish vendors are giving up and stop purchasing fresh fish from the province than we might face a huge problem here because there will be not enough fresh fish for the public in the city or might no fresh fish at all.
A lot of our local business men (fresh fish vendors) had their business halted along the way because they are not able to make profit because of this activity going on in the central market. And to make it worse the fee collectors from the town council authority usually put pressure on these real fresh fish vendors while flexible with these black-market vendors which is very rude in the sense that they are the real fresh fish provider that might need flexibility sometimes rather than black market vendors who did not waste any money on freighting from provinces to Honiara or from point Cruz wharf to big market.
And lastly to the public just to let you know that those black-market vendors are tricking you with price while their scale is slacked compared to the real fresh fish vendors. Take for example, if you buy 5 pounds of fish from the real vendors and 5 pounds from the black vendors it will cost you $100 from the real vendors with their $20 pound while it might cost you $140 to $150 from the black-market vendors with their $16 pound.
With that I raise this concern calling upon responsible authority to address the issue and on the other side of the coin aware the public at the same time about these two types of fresh fish vendors at the central market. however, if this is right practice according to your (responsible Authority/ Town council) constitution then do correct me.
TROYSTAR BESA
