Chairman of Association of Small Scale Industries in the Upper East Region, Felix Penipa, says government is killing small scale businesses in the region with the incessant transportation of furniture and other finished wood products into the region.
According to him, although the region has competent carpenters who have the capacity to produce and supply quality furniture in large quantities, they have been sidelined for southern Ghana based carpenters when it comes to the supply of furniture to various institutions in the region.
Speaking on A1 Radio’s day Break Upper East show, Mr. Penipa noted that the trend which started in 2009 has been a worry for carpenters based in the upper east region who think government has not been fair to them. He added that a more worrying situation is the fact that these contractors from southern Ghana come and do not engage carpenters in the region to execute the jobs.
“Since 2009 supply of desks to the region has been centralized in Accra and this has been a worry to carpenters here in the region. Could you imagine that one person was awarded a contract to supply fifty thousand students’ desks and after three months was also contracted thirty thousand student beds? All the desks were in knock down form. He never took any carpenter from here to do the assembling to benefit something. He brought this own carpenters from South.”
The worrying situation, according to Mr. Penipa was the fact that the contractor brought carpenters from southern Ghana to assemble the furniture and that most of the furniture supplied were inferior and were not used by the schools which were supplied with them.
“This man brought these beds with no buttons to prevent even the pillows and the bed size was like one by three if you shake it the top falling on the ground. All the schools rejected the beds and they are lying outside and some of the schools are using it for Garden. To be specific, Bolga Technical is breaking it and using it to cook for the children,” a very worried Felix Penipa said.
To add more salt to injury is the decision by the Ghana Education Service to use metals for desks for students which are mostly imported from China.
He questioned why although government is advocating for the patronage of made in Ghana goods, the same government turns around to purchase furniture from China adding that “are carpenters in the region not up to the tax?”
He alleged that the sideline was not limited to just the provision of furniture but also “the free school uniform is also imported from China when we have people here who can also sow these dresses to also make a living.”
A sad Mr. Penipa mentioned that this trend has rendered furniture business and small scale industries in the region useless saying “now i do coffin before I can get my daily bread and so with my other colleagues.
He called on government and its agencies and departments to reconsider the decision of always carting furniture and other finished products from other regions to the upper east by supporting small scale industries in the region in order to help create jobs and boost the economy of the region.
By: Offei-Akoto Ayeh/A1RADIOONLINE.COM/GHANA
