WALKING just a distance of three kilometres from Mwanza city centre, you will find an ultra modern Mwaloni Fish Market. The facility, located in Nyamagana District, was established in early 2003 with the support of the Japanese Government.
This market is one of the busiest areas in Mwanza city and it brings together hundreds of people who are involved in the fish trade. Upon arrival at the area, dozens of trading dhows are seen drawn up along the shore, offloading cargoes of fish, firewood, charcoal and farm produce.
The other common and a well known trade that takes place there is that of dried sardines or dagaa as commonly known in Swahili language. Piles of dagaa are stacked there in long rows, while others are piled as high as small houses.
The Mwaloni market is full of hundreds of small scale related fish traders, while others have specialized in bulk consignments of the dried sardines.Thus a selling of dried sardines is very prominent and can be witnessed at this market. Officials say there are more than 300 fish traders, mostly retailers, at the market.
Experts say dagaa is one of a very few fish species that can still be found in large number in the the Lake Victoria. Most of the traders who spoke to this paper explicitly say that the dried sardines trade has lucrative returns though there are certain periods when it keeps on fluctuating due to weather change.
One trader Richard Vedasto (41) has this to say: “As you can see right now, we have a very few customers here, but this doesn’t mean the situation has always remained the same. Sometimes we get plenty of customers to the extent that we cannot even meet their demands,” explains Mr Vedasto.
Many traders claimed that they handle one to over five hundreds bags every week when supplies are high (supplies decline during the March –June and October-December rainy seasons because fishing falls off and sun drying is more difficult.
For sure the business at this period seems to be not doing very well and this is substantiated by Mr Vedasto, who was simply found playing cards with friends along the shore of the Lake: “The business as you can see here is very sluggish at this period of time...Sometimes it happens the sardines can be found in the lake, but a major problem in this period is lack of a reliable suny energy to dry them up,” he narrated.
“During the peak period, especially in a period between February and September, you will find piles of dried dagaa here and you can hardly get a space to pass across this market,” he narrated. Sources said that the fish shipments reach the Mwaloni Market from these points aboard large sailing dhows with cargo capacities of from 10 to 15 tones and it bustles with activity. Many suppliers come from the Ukerewe Islands in Mwanza region.
The traders always receive consignments of dried and smoked fish from myriad artisanal processors in outlying areas and channelling them through other agents for distribution in Mwanza city and inland, to virtually all regions of Tanzania and into neighbouring countries as well.
One trader who identified himself as Mohamed Ally (36), says most of the customers are not the city residents, on the contrary, they come from other areas such as Dar es Salaam, Morogoro, Arusha, Kilimanjaro regions and neighbouring Kenya, “ If you happen to get ten customers a day, for example, you will find at least seven of them are outsiders. Most of them pay cash and there is always scant room for discount or argumentation,” he revealed.
Observers say some of the larger scale businessmen at market handle two hundreds to over three thousands bags of dagaa a month. Each bag weighs between 60 and 100 kilogrammes. Most of them use their own dhows to ship fish from Ukerewe or elsewhere and their own lorries to transport loads inland.
One of the larger scale businessmen Mahmood Hussein (55), says the use of one’s transport, as he puts it, is more reliable, lucrative and minimizes costs of running the businesses. “Experience shows that if you hire a dhow, for instance, you are likely to incur huge costs and this ultimately reduces your profits,” says Mr Hussein who has over 15 years of experience in the same business.
A survey conducted in the area showed that prices of dried dagaa, specifically those for human consumption, stand between 2,100/- and 2,500/- per kilogramme and this, say experts, highly depends on quality of the product. Some traders think that the prices of 2,500/- has high returns and this is because of increased demand of the product at both the local and outside markets: “It is very unlikely to find prices of dagaa falling down at this market...It has always been increasing at a significant level every year.”
Last year, for example, one kilogramme of dagaa stood between 1,400/- and 1,700/- only, but now the same amount costs over 2,000/-,” says Mr Vedasto. Mr Vedasto, a father of three, says the prices of lower quality dagaa, mostly for poultry consumption, range from 1,500/ to 1,800/- per kilogramme.
These kind of sardines, however, are not fit for domestic consumption. Such dagaa are always displayed on the ground along the shore waiting for potential buyers. Several people, however, expressed concern for foul play saying, "There are unscrupuluos traders here who tend to mix both good and lower quality dagaa for sells...We are appalled by this outrageous and irresponsive behaviour because it ends up driving aways potential customers,” lamented one trader who spoke on condition of anonymity.
He adds, “I believe the customers are not fool at all and whenever they discover such kind of a dirty practice, they will always tend to react in a negative way. So the perpetrators always suffer consequences of their own action by losing such customers.” Asked on the major challenges facing the small scale dagaa dealers, one trader overtly replied, “A major challenge facing a vast majority here is just a meagre capital to run our businesses.
We always operate with a staggering capital and therefore we even fail to export the product to neighbouring countries where the profit is substantially higher as compared to the local markets.” The traders appealed to relevant authorities and other key players to provide them with a practical support and “We are seeking soft loans to boost our trade. In most cases the financial institutions charge exorbitant interest rates for the loans to the extent that only a majority of large scale traders can easily have access, while the small scale ones are left to grapple with meagre capital,” he lamented.
Others claimed that the local authorities there tend to charge the traders with ‘exorbitant’ levies. They explicitly pointed out that the authority requires each trader to pay at least a levy of 800/- per one bag of dagaa that weighs a hundred kilogramme: “Whenever we offload the products from the dhows, the tax people are always there asking for the payments.I think 800/- levy is too much for us. But there is nothing we can do about it,” says one trader Josephat Mleke.
Others have varying and opposite reactions as, “The current levy of 800/- per bag is just lower as compared to the year 2008 when we used to pay double taxes of over 800/-, that is, we were supposed to pay during off-loading of the cargo and also as soon as you sell the product to the customer,” said Mr Vedasto.
The challenges are there but Mr Vedasto feels satisfied with a general trend of profits accrued in the trade itself, “I don’t contemplate to quit this business because it pays me a lot...I have been able to fulfil all the basic necessities to my wife, four children and other members of the extended family,” he added.
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