DOHA: The campaign against rising fish prices has snowballed and this time people have now vigorously called for a stop on the export of many fish varieties if only to bring down the cost, especially Hamour, an Arabic daily reported yesterday.
Residents claim that traders deliberately exporting more fish products daily so that the supply in the local market will go down giving them leeway to dictate the fish prices. A social media campaign spearheaded by young people has called on consumers to support the campaign “Make the Fish Cheaper” to pressure traders to lower down the fish prices.
The campaign on Facebook and Twitter have called for a boycott on buying the fish at the central fish market has drawn wide reactions mostly accusing traders of deliberately making the shortage of local fish supply to command higher prices.
Campaigners said it is time the Consumer Protection Department take decisive action against fish price manipulators. On the first day of the boycott campaign, an average number of people came to buy fish at the market yesterday but still saw there has been no drop of fish prices that even Hamour has gone up to QR70 per kilo from QR60 to QR65 a kilo last week. Prices of other premium fish varieties are also remain high. The concerned citizens vowed to take up wider actions to draw more support from the public while traders continue to exploit fixing high fish prices at the expense of the suffering of consumers.
Rashid Al Marri, a resident, said there is a need for more drastic action to address the problem as he disclosed the dwindling local fish supply could be caused by many fishing boats not going out to the sea because Qatari sponsors are not accompanying the fishermen even that they are obliged by law. He denied about his role on the boycott campaign over social media networks although he said such course of action is an effective way to pressure traders to bring down the prices of fish.
The Peninsula
