The jetty was crowded before sunrise.
The supply boat had arrived six hours late. Fewer crates came ashore than expected.
The fishermen’s cooperative posted a wholesale bulletin.
Octopus: up eighteen percent.
Snapper: up twelve.
Prawns: up twenty-one.
Mama Saada looked at Rehema.
“You are not going to tell me to sell at yesterday’s price.”
“No.”
Rehema and Pendo were observers, not price setters.
Saada Seafood posted:
**Octopus 33,000 — supply delay surcharge, today only.**
Jalia posted a similar increase with a written explanation.
Another vendor paid slightly more than the cooperative bulletin because he bought a smaller quantity. His retail increase was correspondingly higher.
Rehema wrote a key point:
**Transparent pricing does not require identical retail prices. Real inputs and business models differ.**
Pendo built a simple cost bridge from the wholesale reference to the retail boards. It did not claim a single “correct” price. It showed the direction and magnitude of a plausible cost response.
Vendors reviewed the bridge and corrected one assumption about portion size.
The corrections stayed visible.
Then they compared the association’s updated guide bands.
The base price rose because seafood genuinely cost more.
The guide-linked group price rose even further.
“Maybe package inputs also rose,” Rehema said.
They checked juice and seating services. No comparable cost increase appeared.
“Labor?”
No new service line was listed.
The association described the additional increase as “group service and conversion value adjustment” without itemization.
Rehema refused the easiest public message: *prices are rising because vendors exploit tourists.*
She separated two findings.
The seafood surcharge was legitimate and publicly explained.
The guide-linked differential remained separate and insufficiently explained.
A consumer blogger accused her of weakening the investigation by defending higher prices.
Rehema replied with a general advisory from the visitor desk: supply disruption may justify temporary, visible surcharges; visitors should still receive clear information about packages and optional services.
No vendor names appeared in the advisory.
Pendo also asked vendors to mark the surcharge duration. A temporary emergency price should not quietly become permanent once the emergency ended.
Near midday, guide Salim arrived alone.
“You know how guides are paid?” he asked.
“Partly.”
“Not enough.”
He said the word *conversion value*.
Rehema did not invite him to hand over private company files.
“If the agreement is yours and you want to give testimony, we can arrange a protected meeting. Bring only what you are entitled to hold.”
Salim asked for a neutral location.
They chose a church hall the next day.
The supply shock had made the pricing analysis more precise.
The fishermen’s cooperative also insisted that the wholesale bulletin was a reference, not a rule binding every stall. Smaller buyers could pay more; quality grades differed; some vendors carried older stock. Rehema put that caveat directly into her analysis. Her aim was not to reverse-engineer a legally correct retail price from one wholesale number. The bulletin helped separate a real market shock from the guide-band uplift that remained after the shock was accounted for. That narrower use made the cost evidence much harder to misuse.
Now the guide side of the incentive system was ready to speak.