Minister of Fisheries and Ocean Resources Ahmed Shiyam has said today that the price of fish has been brought down to MVR 20 to ease the economic pressure on the State.
During the 2023 presidential election campaigns, then President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih had raised the price of fish from MVR 17 to MVR 25.
Asked in parliament today by Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) MP Yaugoob Abdulla if the current government had plans to reverse this price change, the Minister responded that the price change has already been brought into effect.
"We are not considering reversing that, we have done it," Minister Shiyam responded.
The Minister explained that the price of fish has been brought down so as to ensure the State can better guarantee payments owed to fishermen are settled in a timely manner, and in order to prevent Maldives Industrial Fisheries Company (MIFCO) from going bankrupt.
The Minister went on to allege that the former MDP government had raised the price of fish without having conducted any necessary research and had only done so to reap immediate political benefits. He said that the fact that the change had been put into effect during the campaigning for the second round of presidential elections is proof of this statement.
"We said it then, and we stand by it now. [Raising the price of fish] was a change brought to achieve a political purpose," the Minister said.
Shiyam said that the price of fish in the export market is currently at MVR 22.40 per kilo. Therefore, it is not feasible to buy fish from fishermen at the rate of MVR 25 per kilo.
If the price is maintained at the rate it was raised to by the previous government, MVR 1.1 billion from this year's State Budget will need to be spent as subsidies, Shiyam explained.
He revealed that the budgeted amount for subsidies last year was MVR 250 million, but that with the price hike, the last three months of the year saw the amount rise to MVR 500 million.
"This is not something that is possible for the government to undertake," Shiyam said.
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