Prices of smoked catfish have hit an all-time high in some parts of The Gambia as fish prices continue to rise at an unprecedented level.
Housewives, who spoke to JollofNews in Bakoteh, Tallinding and Jabang on Monday, said catfish prices have also started to burrow into household budgets like never before.
“Catfish that can barely satisfy a family of three is now being sold at D600,” housewife Fatoumatta Barry frustratingly told this medium in Jabang.
“Catfish is increasingly becoming the preserve of the economically-stable members of the society,” housewife Kumba Faye of Tallinding said.
Visits to the Bakoteh fish market, Tallinding and Latrikunda markets had revealed how some housewives have been literally avoiding certain fish species due to their pressures on fish money.
“One fish species can drain the entire fish money, hence women are left with no other choice but to cut their coats according to their clothes,” Sainabou Colley explained to JollofNews in a chat at Latrikunda market.
Experts say the ramifications of the Gambia government’s fisheries policies and the bilateral fishing agreements that it signed would continue to be felt in markets, households and at hospitals as they not only negatively impact household budgets but the nutrition security of the country.
