RE: Slumdog engineers of Suame magazine

The Executive Council of Suame Magazine Industrial Development Organization (SMIDO), the umbrella organization and official development unit of Suame Magazine wishes to register our position on the article which appeared in the main news section on the Ghana web on the 20th of August 2009 on Suame Magazine with the above caption.
We hope Ghana web would equally give prominence to this rejoinder to correct this abrasion in our relationship with Volunteers .
The article purported to have been written by one Geoffrey York from the Globe and Mail on the exploits of a 21 year Canadian volunteer who served under SMIDO appears to cast a slur on the efforts of the organization and developments in Suame Magazine. This credit-seeking foreign media massaging to give a foreign outlook to a purely Ghanaian initiative smack of contempt to SMIDO under whose supply chain project that the Canadian volunteer was engaged as one of the stream volunteers serving under SMIDO.
Whilst we appreciate the efforts of Florin George as one of our numerous volunteers from Canada, India, the USA and others from the West African sub-region, the article purported to have come from one Geoffrey appear to be completely misrepresent Suame Magazine, the SMIDO project virtually offloading a Ghanaian ingenuity to a ‘Canadian team’, George Florin as the volunteer and his organization, the Engineers Without Borders.
SMIDO did not have any formal engagement with Engineers Without Borders as the article sought to portray. It is the height of contempt amounting to public deceit for one to contend that the supply chain project to link Suame Magazine into the supply chain of the multinationals particularly the Mining Industry was launched by a Canadian group as captured in the article.
The Suame Magazine Industrial Development Organization was the brain child of Mr. Nyaaba-Aweeba Azongo, the lead consultant to SMIDO and Mr George Asamoah Amankwa, Chairman of the Dynamic Spare Parts Dealers Association(DSPDA)/ President of SMIDO, who sought assistance from BUSAC Fund under the DSPDA in Suame Magazine to implement an advocacy action . The advocacy action was to court policy stakeholder interest to develop Suame Magazine. It was this action in 2006 which gave birth to the Suame magazine Industrial Development Organization.
The organization was subsequently adopted and launched by the Akyempimhene, Oheneba Aduse-Poku with the blessings of Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, the Asantehene. Public spirited leaders like Prof. Frimpong Boateng ,Ms Joyce Aryee, Ms Dorothy Gordon, Hon.Kyei Mensah Bonsu, Hon.Alban Bagbin, Hon.J.B Danquah and a host of the cream of the nation’s leadership identified with the project to support the cause of industrial development in the country.
As part of her contribution to the development of Suame Magazine as a Patron of SMIDO, Miss Joyce Aryee deservedly invited SMIDO to be part of the Ghana Chamber of Mines Expanded Council meeting in February 2008 to present a paper on how the mining industry could collaborate with Suame Magazine. It was upon this initiative that an engineering unit was established to begin our engagement with the mining industry.
As a matter of fact , Mr. Jeff Huspeni, the head of the Newmont in Ghana pledged their support to the current initiative to develop Suame Magazine. Through this project we took the first contract from Ghana Bauxite Company in the very early part of 2008 followed by Central African Gold, whilst Newmont under Jeff Huspeni were prepared to welcome Suame Magazine with a promise to visit Suame Magazine. At the meeting we were reminded of the premium the mining industry place on safety and environment and this became part of SMIDO’s initiative under the Suame Magazine –Mining Industry collaboration. .Since then we have become part of the Chamber of Mines effort by inviting SMIDO to the technical committee meeting of the Chamber of mines in December 4th 2008. It was to augment our capacity to strengthen the quality control engineering supervision to ensure that standards required by the mining industry are met that we formally employed Ghanaian trained engineers to work with our team of engineers from Suame Magazine to support the supply-Chain linkage project. A well furnished office and a workshop to enable the unit served the corporate mining industries was provided by SMIDO.
SMIDO as an organization has become the haven for foreign volunteers. We received our first volunteer during the first quarter of 2008 from the University of Columbia to support the ICT resource centre under SMIDO volunteer support proramme.
We have been playing host to foreign volunteers from India, Canada, the USA and Cote d’I voire to teach French to the segment of Suame Magazine dealing with the francophone countries. We receive numerous applications from volunteers wanting to serve with SMIDO under our Volunteer support the coordination. These volunteers are screened and selected and subsequently given terms of reference and assigned a role under SMIDO’s numerous projects.
The 21 year Canadian, the principal character of the article was just one of the volunteers who came through this stream and was housed by SMIDO with an office and paid allowance to lend his support to the SMIDO engineering unit which already has experienced Ghanaian engineers in the unit. He got to the country on the 28th January 2009.
Against the forgoing one could appreciate the motive behind the texture of the article especially the part which states that “If the small-scale artisans and repairmen can be linked into the supply chain of multinational corporations, could they escape poverty and work in safer conditions? That's the experiment a Canadian group has launched. With a new aid philosophy that aims at business-oriented solutions, the Canadians are marketing the skills and ingenuity of the slum-dwellers, connecting them to foreign investors and helping them bid on valuable contracts that could transform their lives”
The impression that it was an initiative by a Canadian group was unfortunate and very cynical as it rubbishes the local ingenuity and current efforts to portray it as a Canadian expedition. SMIDO was not mentioned nor implied in the article. It is our duty to inform the public, reinforce the Ghanaian belief in Ghanaian leadership and ingenuity and to set the records straight that the supply chain linkage of Suame Magazine project remains SMIDO initiative and that George Florin was engaged as a Volunteer with his role spelt-out by SMIDO. In effect he came in as a volunteer and could not be the originator of this intervention nor a Canadian group.
The text of the article that “Mr. Gheorghe, supported by a Canadian non-profit group called Engineers Without Borders, arrived at the slum in January to work for its industrial development organization. George Roter, the Toronto-based co-founder of Engineers Without Borders, says the project in Suame Magazine is an innovative approach that could produce broader lessons for the foreign aid sector.
“The concept of stimulating business development using demand from international resource-extraction operations could be powerful in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa,” he said.
“It's certainly a contrast to traditional aid-based approaches, and fits well with EWB's philosophy of development that sees successful African businesses and entrepreneurs as the engine of development.”
The Executive Council against the run of this article wishes to state that SMIDO is a Ghanaian conceived and Ghanaian-led initiative and an attempt to portray such an intervention by foreign nationals as their own would not be entertained. We are equally appalled by the negative description of Suame Magazine which contrasts with the segment serving the mining industry. This is very contemptuous and we call on members of the public to treat this article and its intention with the contempt it deserves.
Source: The rejoinder was put together by the Executive Patron of SMIDO, Mr Appiah Kubi.