President John Dramani Mahama has promised to transform the Suame magazine into a state-of-the-art light industrial area.
In line with this, it was going to set up an information and communication technology (ICT) centre, equipped with diagnostic machines and other devices to aid the artisans to operate more efficiently.
He was addressing artisans there as part of his four-day election campaign in the Ashanti Region to woo voters ahead of next month’s presidential and parliamentary polls.
The magazine is recognized as the largest artisan engineering cluster in sub-Saharan Africa, specializing in vehicle repairs and metal works.
It is estimated that more than 200,000 artisans are operating in the area.
President Mahama said a polyclinic would be built and an ambulance provided to deal with emergencies.
He encouraged the artisans to take advantage of the automobile training programmes run by the Skills Development Fund (SDF) to enhance their skills.
He indicated that the automobile industry held enormous prospects for the nation’s economy and therefore the need to focus effort and resources to develop the sector.
President Mahama also visited the Sokoban Wood Village to interact with the wood workers, where he told them that they could not continue to do things the way they had been doing.
They should take steps to add value to their products to enable them to penetrate the international market.
He gave the assurance that the road network at the Village would be improved to facilitate their economic activities.
President Mahama encouraged the woodworkers to invest in afforestation programmes to enable them to have access to the raw material they needed for their work.
He expressed worry about the destruction of the nation’s forest through illegal tree felling and said it was important the people took to tree planting.
The nation’s forest cover which stood at 8.4 million hectares, five decades ago has shrunk to 1.7 million.
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(Via: NewsGhana)
