The
100-paged investment policy blueprint embodies a medium term industrial
development plan towards industrialization by 2016.
The
project is under the second phase of an industrial development roadmap to promote
local-content investment and policy for the industrialization of Suame
Magazine, the largest artisanal engineering enclave in West Africa.
The
major intervention is to mobilize resource to build a modern industrial complex
on a 1000 acre land strategically located close to the present artisanal
engineering cluster.
According
to Nyaaba-Aweeba Azongo, author of the blueprint and Consultant to the Suame
Magazine Industrial Development Organization (SMIDO), “the regional investment
gateway branding is to afford the opportunity to develop Suame Magazine as the
major investment conduit to the West African market to reach out to the rest of
the sub-regional blocks in Africa with its own unique brand of innovative engineering
products.”
Suame
Magazine is the economic stranglehold of Ashanti region with an estimated
livelihood support to a population of over 1.3million. The Magazine, with its expertise in vehicular
repairs and maintenance, also has a market jurisdiction of over 250 million
population across the entire West African sub-region with footnotes in the
North-African region.
The
current market outlook in West Africa indicates that Burkina Faso is currently
Suame Magazine’s leading market with a significant market performing rate of
32% followed by Niger, Cote d’Ivoire, Mali, Togo and Nigeria with
market rates of 15%, 14%, 13%, 11% and 10% respectively.
“Ghana
is lagging behind because of lack of industrialization and that is the essence
of SMIDO and of the Suame Magazine; these are wheels of industrialization which
the government and the people of this country must support,” noted the
Akyeampimhene, Oheneba Aduse-Poku.
The
first phase of the SMIDO project started in 2006 under the USAID-DANIDA-DFID
sponsored Business Sector Advocacy Challenge (BUSAC) Fund to determine an
industrial development roadmap to develop Suame Magazine into a modern
industrial estate.
Successes
chalked under the phase include the design and outdoor of a prototype vehicle
dubbed “SMATI Turtle” with international partners to evolve a Ghanaian
automobile brand, as well as the establishment of the Suame Magazine Industrial
Development Fund (SMID FUND) as an avenue for artisans to acquire industrial
plots for operations and access to a comprehensive one-stop-shop financial
cover for a secured business and enterprise competitiveness.
“The
second phase of the industrialization agenda is to mobilize resources through a
local content investment strategy and local content industry integration policy
within the framework of a tripartite partnership model of
Industry-Academia-Government to administer the development of the Roadmap
towards industrialization,” said Mr. Azongo.
SMIDO
has developed an industry-led institutional training centre – the Suame
Magazine Automatics Technical Institute (SMATI) – which has entered into a
partnership with the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST)
to establish a unit of artisanal engineering under the College of Engineering
for the training, assessment and certification of artisanal engineers in the
country.
The
Ghana Chamber of Mines has also pledged its support to SMIDO in enhancing the
value of Ghana’s industrial sector.
“The
Chamber will support the artisans in Suame to acquire the competency that is
needed to function effectively and meaningfully in the mining sector through
the provision of capacity building programmes,” stated Dr. Toni Aubynn, Chief
Executive of the Chamber.
According
to Mr. Azongo, Suame Magazine could be adopted as a model to promote an
equity-based local content policy in the mining, oil and gas industry for the
entire artisanal engineering industry in the country as a primary vehicle to
propel economic development.
“It
is important to factor industry-based characteristics in the Mining, Oil and
Gas Industry to ensure a more equity-based local content driven economic
development. The labour-intensive industrial sectors must be given special
privileges if local content policy is to promote equity in economic
development,” he said.
SMIDO
President, Sarpong Boateng, has appealed to the government to reconsider the
provision in the 2010 Budget Statement on Suame Magazine in this year’s budget
to support the SMATI project.
