Micro/District Economy

About 69% of the labour force in Tano South Municipal is in employment which, though lower as compared to national employment level of 79%, is encouraging for a district like Tano South Municipal.  The main employment sectors are agriculture, industry, service and commerce.

Small And Medium Scale Enterprise

There are a number of Small Scale Industries in the District ranging from agro-processing through stone quarrying, soap making, batik tie and dye, clay production, etc.
 
The establishment of Small and Medium Scale Enterprises in the District has been facilitated by resource base which includes agricultural produce, forest resources and mostly the traditional apprenticeship scheme in the District for decades.  

However, the traditional small scale industries such as dressmaking and tailoring, hairdressing, carpentry, etc. continue to dominate the entire small and medium scale enterprises in the District. Table 7 shows how hairdressing and dressmaking dominate the self-employment activities in the District.  This is due to the fact that these two areas enjoy the highest traditional handing-down skills in the District. 

To boost diversification of enterprises and break the over-concentration of people in these two enterprises, the Rural Enterprises Project in the District is counselling people in other areas of employable skills like mushroom cultivation, snail rearing, bee-keeping, baking and confectionery, etc.

Besides the introduction of some appropriate technologies, the Business Advisory Centre (BAC) also trains participants in business management in order to enhance their managerial skills so as to manage their businesses more profitably.

Table 8 shows some of the technologies introduced, the number of participants involved and performance of the enterprises:
The growth rate of the broad Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) Sector at the District has been declining of late but more pronounced in the manufacturing sector.

By the end of the plan period, however, it is expected that the decline in the sector would have been arrested and a modest gain made.  Since the rate of development of the sector is determined by market accessibility, the availability of investment finance, the level of managerial and technical skills, the state of the economic infrastructure and the administrative and legal framework which governs business operations, effective measures would be put in place to enhance these issues in order to arrest the decline in the industrial sector by the end of the planned period.

Some specific industries and their locations are tabulated below:

Skills Training

The District Assembly is engaged in fruitful interventions to increase productions in all sectors of the economy in order to enhance gainful employment of the teeming masses of the District.

This is in line with the current government policy of wealth creation and the development of the private sector as the mover of the economy.  This portion discusses the major sectors that employ the bulk of the people in skills training in the District.

The Rural Enterprises Project was designed to sustain the Government of Ghana’s economic reforms by combining the adjustment process with programmes generating efficient employment in the private productive sectors.  The overall objective of the project is to increase the incomes of the rural poor and to meet the needs of agricultural producers for inputs and services.  This objective is being achieved by;
 
(1)    facilitating access to technical services and business advice;
(2)    providing easy access to financial facilities; and
(3)    improving the efficiency of existing small rural enterprises and supporting new initiatives in suitable small scale enterprises.

Project Contribution Towards Realisation Of Government’s Development Objectives

Master Craftsmen Training

The project with its objective of upgrading the technical skills of master craftsmen offers short – term training for master craftsmen to enable them increase quality in response to consumer demands. It is worth mentioning that such training also enhances the capacity of the master craftsmen and thus enable them to train apprentices more effectively and efficiently.

As at June 2006, a total of 100 master craftsmen and artisans had been trained in product development and finishing, production of simple gari processing machine, free hand drawing, costing and pricing.

Training In New Business Opportunities

In order to promote employment and income generation, the project trained the unemployed and underemployed individuals and groups in appropriate small business ventures which can easily be adopted by women and youths from poor rural families.  As at June 2006 the following micro enterprises have been introduced to these individuals and groups in the District as specified in Table 10.

•    Batik Tie & Dye
•    Shoe making
•    Mushroom cultivation
•    Soap making
•    Powder making
•    Baking and confectionery
•    Parrazone and detergent making
•    New Business Parrazone and Detergent making
•    Beads making

As at June 2006, the following micro-enterprises had been introduced to 292 clients in the District.  Out of this number, 233 were females which represents 80%.

Businesses Established

As at June 2006, a cumulative total number of 512 businesses had been established as the result of project interventions.  These new businesses had in turn also generated employment to about 830 individuals.  These new businesses have a success rate of about 80% with 40 to 50% growing to become medium size ventures if the current enabling environment for business survival and growth is sustained.

With these businesses established 385 are females representing about 75%. There has been increasing concern in the District in recent times, about the inability of graduate apprentices to establish their own businesses due to financial problems.  In order to achieve the project’s objective of generating employment for the unemployed rural youth, the Assembly embraced the proposed Graduate Apprenticeship Support Scheme by supporting 35 graduate apprentices with ¢103million as starter loans for the opening of their own businesses.  The 35 people established hairdressing, leather making enterprises, beads making, etc.

Thus as at September 2006, a cumulative number of 46 Graduate Apprentices had established their own businesses with females representing 65%.

Credit Disbursement

As at June 2006, the cumulative credit disbursed by the project in the District stood at ¢2,460,300,000.00.

In terms of credit volume, about ¢1,484,200,000.00 representing about 60% was disbursed to women and female managed enterprises in line with project objective and strategy of strengthening the economic well-being of women at the rural level.  Project clients who have benefited from the financial services have been able to expand their businesses and thus improved their income earning capacity.

All in all, financial services, especially credit has been one of the essential elements of project intervention and a major factor which has influenced the performance of enterprises supported by the project.

However these are the identified key development problems:

   1. Untimely release of credit
   2. High cost of inputs
   3. Lack of collateral security
   4. High interest rate