By Martha Taumata Faavae
Regular fish sellers at the Savalalo Fish Market are being forced to set up around the roadside to eke out much needed sales for their catches of either tuna or bottom fish.
Most of the sellers have their own fleet of family owned and operated alia or doubled hulled fishing boats averaging from 3 or more that brought in catches during the week.
Tuna sellers Viliamu Chusing of Si’usega and Laga Milo of Puipa’a confirmed the rough passage the local fishing community is going through since health security measures against the COVID-19 pandemic led to the emergency lockdown.
“Mondays to Thursdays are bad days and since the lockdown it has really slowed down except for Fridays and Saturdays when sales pick up but it is not the same as before,” Chusing confessed when he talked to Newsline Samoa at the side of the road at Vaitele.
“Before the pandemic measures were put in place we would normally average about 50 fish sold a day to mostly working people and hotels at the fish market.
“Today we’d be lucky if we sell 5 before the fish market closes so we try to sell on the side of the road and we’ve had days when there are no sales.”
Chusing has 7 fishing boats in his family with 25 people employed continuing to go out and returning with catches for him to try and sell.
Laga Milo has been having poor sales at the fish market she is leaning towards taking her chances of selling only at the side of the road to see if she can do better there.
Her children runs the three boats the family have and she sells the catches they brought in.
“I would normally load up our fish cooler everytime the boats return with their catches and head out to the market but I could only manage to sell a handful.
“I’ve dropped my prices to between $10-20 a fish just to make a sale. Sundays are usually our good days at the fish market but since they closed it has made it worse.”
Chusing and Milo have noted that many of their regular buyers like the Chinese community no longer comes around since dinning at restaurants became restricted.
The hard hitting effects on the tourism industry has also left a huge trickle down effect on fish sales with empty hotel rooms.
Like all the other business sectors hurting from the health security measures enforced by the lockdown, their hopes are on the lifting on the ban so life can slowly return to normal again.