Smido?s Technological Advancement In The 21st Century

A CONDUIT TO AFRICA?S INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT

SMIDO is an acronym which means Suame Magazine Industrial Development Organisation, the umbrella body and a development unit to unite all the splinter associations of Suame Magazine to champion the cause of its (Suame Magazine?s) development agenda.

The current state of technology has imposed significant challenges on Suame Magazine to adopt state-of the art technology in its operations in order to remain relevant in the fast advancing global engineering industry in which it is an integral part.

The Suame Magazine located in Kumasi is recognised as the largest artisan engineering cluster: mechanical, electrical and car body building workshop in the sub-Sahara Africa. It occupies an area of about 20 square miles. The Suame-Magazine, formed spontaneously in the 1929 is a cluster of artisans engaged mainly in vehicle repairs and metal works.

The industrial area known locally as 'Suame-Magazine', because its original site once housed a military magazine, is involved in five major clustered set of activities. The working population of the magazine is estimated to be 200,000, more than three times the threshold population of a political district, of which 12,000 are shop-owning proprietors.

Traditionally, the 'Magazine' craftsmen were involved in vehicle repairs, with a small number of blacksmiths also producing basic agricultural tools, charcoal stoves, and other simple metal goods. Out of this base of blacksmithing has evolved a group of firms involved in various types of metal-work manufacturing. All of the metal-working firms spend at least some of their time doing repair and maintenance work, but all are also manufacturers. Dawson (1988) categorised them into three groups: blacksmiths who used clay and brick forges and hand tools, a middle group who had achieved a modest level of technological enhancement, mostly with the use of locally made machines, and a group using machine tools, including at least one lathe, that Dawson calls 'engineering' workshops.

The first turning-point came with the retreat of Ghana's formal economy from the mid-1970s onwards when 'even the least ambitious blacksmith added new products to his range or, at the very least, increased the volume of his production' (Dawson 1988: 27). Entrepreneurs saw vehicles lacking parts that could no longer be imported, and attempted to fabricate suitable spares. Others saw the need for food processing or agricultural equipment, and copied existing imported models.

The market liberalisation of the mid-1980s was not uniform in its effects on the firms in the cluster. Declining markets and increased competition brought about the extremely low barriers to entry, drove many blacksmiths out of business, and reduced incomes for many others. Middle-level firms, especially those whose products were significantly inferior to their imported counterparts, were also affected. For both of these groups, therefore, the mid-1980s represented a sharply negative turning-point in their operations. The engineering firms, on the other hand, fared much better. Their higher level technology enabled them to capture markets from both large domestic industry and from imports.

? Suame-Magazine?s profile of development challenges

The Suame Magazine is a cluster of artisans engaged mainly in vehicular repairs and metal works with a working population of over 200,000 of which 12,000 are shop-owning proprietors. In the Ghanaian economy the Suame-Magazine plays a crucial role in capacity building in technical and vocational skills to young school dropouts and serves as the industrial attachment for practical training for trainees in technical and vocational schools and polytechnics. It has strong vertical bilateral linkages between garages and metal workshops, mostly the engineering firms. The strength of the activities depends on the ingenuity and diversity of services that is undertaken by both apprentices and master craftsmen of the cluster.

The industrial estate is currently saddled with development challenges threatening the prospects of its development and survival in the global automobile and metal processing industry.

With reference to a field survey to establish the critical development challenges, knowledge of ICT and the basics of computing in the industrial operations of the estate emerged as virtually absent pitched against the primary necessity of ICT as the fundamental driving force in industrial technological development and metal processing. About 2% of the master craftsmen has email addresses and access the internet given the global linkages of their businesses.

Prominent among the challenges was also the ignorance of the state-of-art technology in their individual fields of operations to facilitate investments in the acquisition of such technology in cluster industrial operations as a quality control planning mechanism.

There is no secure land tenure leading to ejection and threats of ejection of artisans; the upshot of this phenomenon is the gradual change in land use from industrial activities to residential estates and other developments that have no bearing on industrial activities to sustain the benefits of the clustered economies of scale.

The poor collaboration among various industrial clusters constrains effective synergy and the utilisation of economies of scale; inadequate land leading to congestion in the estate ; unreliable power supply; poor road infrastructure; inability of artisans to access credit from financial institutions; no entrepreneurial and further training opportunities for artisans; absence of a health facility to meet emergencies; no welfare/pension scheme for artisans; workers are not certified to be employed in institutions; and poor security leading to armed robberies in the industrial area.

The lack of a common front, as the economic groupings attains social and political outlooks breeding conflicts, has been the major constraint to reaping the benefits of economies of scale and effective synergy for the development of the Suame Industrial estate.

? Role in national Development The importance of Suame-Magazine as a cluster of artisans with creative skills that demand national policy and development agency support to establish the estate as a technological centre to support national development is a settled public consensus.

The industrial cluster has been actively involved in capacity building in technical and vocational skills to young school dropouts and serves as a centre for industrial attachment and practical training for trainees in technical and vocational schools and polytechnics. The strength of the activities depends on the quality and diversity of services that is undertaken by both apprentices and master craftsmen of the cluster. Trainees come from all parts of the country to receive this unique training and after graduation go back to their respective districts and regions as mechanics, drivers, welders, fabricators, technical men replicating services through modest artisanal clusters to both institutions and private individuals. ? Forward and Backward Linkages The Suame vehicle repair cluster is characterised by extensive horizontal subcontracting linkages as well as by vertical linkages with the engineering firms producing spare parts. Subcontracting has linked small firms within Suame, and resulted in joint production. Although the Suame Magazine was begun by former employees of large firms, there is little contact between these large firms and Suame's small garages.

Strong vertical bilateral linkages between garages and metal workshops, mostly the engineering firms, lead to another form of joint production. A mechanic in need of a part goes to an engineering workshop carrying the old part. The workshop may either rework the existing part or make a new one using the old as a model. The mechanic then fits the part and continues with the rest of the repair job.

? Suame Magazine: a case of an Economic District and Policy Constituency. Suame Magazine as a cluster of artisans with creative skills is the centre of indigenous African creativity with actors who are less-educated but well-endowed. Suame-Magazine is a policy constituency and an economic district. Suame-Magazine as an economic district with a population of over 200,000 lacks a common entry central administrative unit pitched against the fact of a political district of 75 000 threshold population with an administrative entry unit (District Assembly) that receives ceded funds from Government annually for development interventions. This is where the institutional development challenges of Suame Magazine could be appreciated. The enlightenment of the policy and economic electorates is a key requirement towards influencing national policies for its development.

The current initiative of SMIDO on the national advocacy front is seen within the context of setting in motion a policy and economic electorates? enlightenment process to determine the basis for policy and political engagement towards the immediate and strategic needs of Suame Magazine.

The Suame industrial estate is a growth pole that demands urgent and an all-purpose policy and sustainable budgetary provisions to develop the estate as propelling centre of informal sector development especially in the artisanal engineering sector.

The immediate challenges of Suame Magazine are the legal access to land and the widening technological gap in its operations within the global automobile industry.

Industrialisation has enjoyed significant goodwill and merits of history as the propelling force in the global economics of national development. Technology underlines industrialisation and the appropriate blend of the two provides the engineering infrastructure for growth and development. Technology was a historical badge of civilisation as it symbolises a creative response to generational challenges of development and self-assertion.

This was largely the prism from which African civilisation was gauged in the historical contest of progress and intellectual superiority. The technological badge of civilisation has taken a more sophisticated dimension in contemporary development determination as developed and industrialised nations are used interchangeably. Development has replaced civilisation in a more polite sense in contemporary usage. This is at the core of the global intellectual resource identity, recognition and competitiveness.

Ghana has made significant attempts at industrialisation, especially in the immediate post independence era through definite Plans: 1st and 2nd development plan (1951-59], 7-year plan (1963\64-1969\70], 2-year plan [1968-1970] and the latter post independence period through the five-year plan [1975\76-1979\80], the vision 2020 and currently the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy. The core strategy of the GPRS is to pursue industrial development through the private sector as the basis of wealth creation, growth and poverty reduction.

? Inappropriate Industrial policies and African policy neglect of industrial clusters A fundamental missing link running through all the elaborate plans at national industrialisation drive since independence has been the neglect of the naturally emerged and self-economies of scale-sustaining industrial clusters of Ghana. The clusters are the domain expertise for technological transfer and creation. In response to the prospects of sub-Saharan African industrialization, Prof. Keijiro Otsuka, a renowned International Industrial Development specialist from FASID, Tokyo, Japan had this to say, ?Sub-Saharan Africa will never succeed in industrialization if it focuses on the development of inappropriate industries. It is better to begin with simple labour-intensive industries like Garment, Shoe, Weaving, Metalwork, Simple Machinery etc?. (Prof. Kei Otsuka, strategy of Cluster-based industrial development, FASID, 2007).

This view underscores the challenge in the above policy submission of a fundamental missing link in industrial development that treats artisan engineering clusters as outside the conventional web of modernity to merit policy interest.

The policy and planning commitment to harnessing the potential of these self-sustaining clusters for sustainable industrialisation has been largely lacking in national efforts at poverty reduction.

The importance of cluster-based industrial estates cannot be overemphasized. All the cluster-based industrial estates in Africa are in the informal sector and have never benefited from Government?s interventions. African governments policy neglect of artisan clusters the basis of ingenuity for African industrialization raises questions about African preparedness to tear itself from the colonial dualistic classification of formal /informal sectors for which the latter, the indigenous African sectors must attain the shape and feature of the Eurocentric former to be of value in development policy consideration. The appreciation of the intersection of domain and professional expertise and the purpose of technological products is significant to collapse the classification between engineering and artisanalship, as the goal of technology recognises no such distinction but what technology serves at any particular moment in time.

The most prominent artisan clusters in the African industrial landscape are the Kariobangi metal processing and machinery cluster in Nairobi, Suame Magazine in Kumasi, Ghana, Addis Ababa Shoe Cluster in Ethiopia and the Garment Cluster of Nairobi, Kenya. These clusters have attained dimensions comparable to East Asia in size, despite the absence of Government support (Prof. Kei Otsuka, strategy of Cluster-based industrial development, FASID, 2007).

? African Poverty as an informal sector phenomenon Poverty is largely an informal sector phenomenon in Africa. In this direction Cluster-Based Industrial estates the successful informal sector cases in the African industrial development landscapes could be the new focus in poverty which centres on policies and interventions for poverty reduction in Africa. This could be done through the establishment of Network System of Cluster Based industrial Estates with the rest of the world to facilitate technological transfer and dissemination to pull the cluster-based industrial estates along a definite advanced industrial development path.

Suame Magazine industrial cluster, emerged in 1929 and recognized as the largest artisanal industrial cluster in Africa is the major victim of national industrial policy neglect and internal institutional failures in the numerous plans at industrialisation since independence.

BUSAC Fund?s intervention The current landmark and historical initiative to bring the splinter groups together is being facilitated by the Business Sector Advocacy Challenge Fund project supported by the nation?s major development partners of DANIDA, USAID, and DFID. The facilitative intervention of the BUSAC Fund Project led to the formation and establishment of Suame Magazine Industrial Development Organization (SMIDO) as an umbrella body and a development unit to unite all the associations to champion the cause of Suame Magazines development.

The SMIDO intervention looks poised to overcome the historical problem of divisiveness to chart a common development cause for the advancement of the industrial operations of Suame Magazine. SMIDO has outlined elaborate plans and models to underlie its development activities towards emerging a technologically advance industrial estate out of the current industrial cluster to propel Ghana into a middle income country.

Credit: SMIDO Policy Document (2007) The writer is a journalist and a PR practitioner
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