++SUAME MAGAZINE++

+++an industrial cluster+++part one+++Kumasi+++Ghana+++

SUAME MAGAZINE
THE GARDEN CITY ANTHOLOGY

AN INDUSTRIAL CLUSTER
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.
This set of pictures is about the present-day situation of the Magazine.
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 industrial area known locally as Suame-Magazine, because its original site once housed
a military magazine used by the British, 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 Ghanas 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. 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 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.