The Berekum light industrial zone is one of the first main LRED initiatives of GIZ in Ghana. The successful setting up of the Berekum light industrial zone has since made the light industrial zone concept an important tool in the promotion of the contemporary local economic development approach, particularly in the Brong Ahafo Region of Ghana. Currently, most of the districts in the Brong Ahafo Region are setting up light industrial zones. The use of the light industrial zone concept in Berekum was prompted by a number of factors. It became widely evident that physical planning in the Districts hardly makes provision for industrial areas or zones. This has often resulted in the springing up of micro and small business shops/workshops in unauthorised areas in the cities. This littering of industrial activities around the cities has been a nuisance to urban residents and source of environmental problems in many urban centres in Ghana. As such, in city re-development exercises, these micro and small business units become victims of demolition undertaken by city authorities. This was the situation in the Berekum Township. Thus, there was a compelling need to deal with the haphazard springing up of unauthorised buildings including micro and small enterprise workshop as well as the poor waste management associated with the activities of these artisans. The setting up of the Berekum light industrial zone was thus a response by the Berekum Municipal Assembly and its development partners, particularly GIZ to the environmental problems caused by the activities of these enterprises in the Berekum Central Business District (CBD) in particular. The setting up of the light industrial zone was thus part of efforts to decongest the central business district. Essentially, the establishment of light industrial zones in the districts was intended to provide a convenient working environment for micro and small scale enterprises to operate effectively. As such, the main target group was those micro and small enterprises that needed a convenient space or environment, including reliable energy such as welders and fabricators, car repairers,
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wood processors and so on. The idea of setting up a light industrial zone in Berekum as explained by officials of the GIZ was to design a place with common services for a set of enterprises with complementary activities or services to operate. This idea of creating a convenient place with common services for a set of enterprises with complementary activities also falls in line with Michael Porter’s notion of clusters. This concept of light industrial zones or clustering is not new in Ghana, though it is hardly promoted on a national scale. The idea of employing the light industrial zone concept as an LED initiative was also partly based on the success stories of earlier local industrial zones in Ghana, particularly the Suame Magazine in Kumasi, which remains the largest informal industrial area in Ghana.
The Suame Magazine is well known as a place where a group of local Ghanaian artisans – educated and non-educated alike display high level of creativity. Mytelka (2007: 52) notes “the Suame Magazine cluster in Kumasi, Ghana consists of nearly 5,000 trades’ people in small garages and workshops making spare automobile parts and offering repair services.” As noted by Dawson (1993: 73), small firms here are playing an important import-substitution role by manufacturing and maintaining most of the tools and equipment used by other firms. In the field of transport, for example, Dawson (1993: 79) notes “the increase in repair and renovation work occasioned by the sharp increase in the national vehicle fleet was, in the case of Kumasi, accounted for almost exclusively by small enterprises.” The Suame Magazine has been a living success story of the industrial zone/cluster concept in Ghana and beyond. The artisans in the Suame Magazine in Kumasi are well noted for their creativity:
“Imported goods which have been displaced in Ghana by small-firm products include numerous machine and tool parts, various specialised nuts and bolts, and bulky food- processing equipment. One small firm in Kumasi was commissioned to make gears and sprockets for a local Yugoslav motorcycle assembly plant prior to the adoption of the structural adjustment programme in 1983 due to the scarcity of foreign exchange with which to import the pieces from Europe. Even after foreign exchange became more freely available, however, the plant continued to purchase from the local producer, finding his pieces to be of a similar quality and significantly cheaper than the imports would have been” (Dawson 1993: 76-77).
This extract demonstrates the industrial dynamism that is being generated by the Suame Magazine. During my field research, I also noticed that the Sunyani Magazine in the Brong Ahafo Region is closely drawing from the experience of the Suame Magazine, and is fast taking shape. My interviews with the leadership of the Sunyani magazine revealed that plans are far advance to relocate to a more spacious location to accommodate the growing number of artisans in the existing magazine. It is largely based on the experiences of the Suame Magazine in Kumasi and the Sunyani Magazine that the artisans in Berekum also initiated the process of
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setting up a magazine or light industrial zone in Berekum; which later received the support of GIZ. It is expected that, the Berekum light industrial zone which is the first organised LED initiative in that direction will catch up with these old industrial zones in Ghana popularly called magazines.