The lack of electricity – and therefore refrigeration – has spoiled a total of 5,000 pounds of fish in Bejucal, Mayabeque. The journalist echoed this Leyda Sanchezfrom the complaints of the neighbors in their social networks.
“Where did the 2.3 tons of fish that was announced on social networks for the sale of the expo fair in Bejucal go?” Pedro Luis González Acevedo, a resident of that municipality, asked on his Facebook wall this Sunday. until 2010 it belonged to the province of Havana. Right there, his neighbors responded: “They put them in the refrigerator at the 19th street market and it spoiled due to lack of electricity, there is still a plague there.”
The photographs of rotten tilapia, disseminated by González Acevedo himself, corroborated this.
“I was taught that fish is useless when the gills lose their reddish color and turn yellow, but in Bejucal everyone who passed by the market on 19th Street knew it because the rotten smell was unbearable,” wrote Leyda Sánchez in his publication, which continued: “The same story of the quintals of mangoes that were spoiled in Camagüey or tomatoes in Artemisa because they needed an authorization that did not arrive, because, because, because… (just to mention the last episodes of this type that I remember). More of the same bureaucracy, disorganization and apathy that surrounds us”.
“That two blocks from my house rot more than two tons of fish… And nothing happens”
The product, which, like so much protein on the Island, is scarce, despite being a kind of poor quality, was intended to be sold at a food fair. “In the same circoferia to which he refers, the order was given that the little merchandise that there was could not be sold until the TV arrived and recorded,” user Frank Capote Benítez denounced in comments to the post of Sanchez. “We Bejucaleños witnessed it.”
Hiram Cartaya lamented: “I haven’t eaten fish since I traveled to the United States before the pandemic (and I can consider myself lucky) and that two blocks from my house more than two tons of fish rot… And nothing happens” .
For her part, Nancy Fleitas asked that the authorities “recognize that they were wrong and that they publicly apologize to us.” And she concluded: “Could it be that arrogance leaves us?”.
Meanwhile, the local press is silent on the matter. Yes indeed, Radio Mayabeque assures in a publication on its Facebook page that “despite the cruel economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed on Cuba by the United States, our green Antillean caiman is making its way and betting on an economy whose pillars are focused on increasing production and defense at a business level, promote savings and build ties of solidarity at an international level”.
Tilapia, a freshwater fish, does not enjoy a good reputation among Cubans, who consider its meat to be of lesser quality and “with an earthy flavor” when compared to coastal species. However, as fishing in national and international waters has been reduced, fish raised in dams have been one of the few options left for Cuban households to eat fish.
Despite its low value, tilapia is ahead of tench and claria, both imported species that have become an ecological problem due to their invasive and predatory nature. Especially clarias, also known by the name of catfish, have become an environmental problem and have ended up displacing other local species.
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