Cane weavers around cantonments are encouraging the public to buy what they describe as “authentic made in Ghana products” from them. The cane weavers say their business creates employment for many Ghanaian youth and thus patronage would keep them in business.
They are therefore calling on President Akufo-Addo to include their business onto its flagship program one district, one factory (1D1F), to enable all cane weavers congregate at a suitable location that would make it easy for people to access their products.
“This job we are doing here puts food on our table and many families; we train a lot of the youths here too, government can support us here by creating a market for us.” Mr. Opuni said
He continued that since their current location is not for them, their landlords can choose to sack them at any time hence the call for government to support them.
One other cane weaver encouraged youths who are jobless to see their business as a lucrative business venture and learn how to create something from canes.
Mr. Amajia who is also into cane weaving said “this location is not good for us, many people don’t see us, usually our customers are foreigners but we want to tell Ghanaians that our products are very authentic Ghanaian products.”
“The problem is that we need a market place for all of us so that when a customer walks in, she or he can get everything he wants at the same location, trust me, our products are good and durable.” Mr. Sam
The cane weaver’s wants government to tend its attention to their business as supporting them to expand would create job opportunities for many youth.
Debunking the fear expressed by many that their products are expensive, Mr Opuni said their products are not expensive but durable as compared to similar products that people import into the country.
“Sometimes the canes become difficult to get, the forestry commission officers and middle men makes the transportation difficult that is why they increase the price for us. And once the price of the raw material goes up, we are also forced to increase in a bit, sometimes the canes that goes into creating one products even makes it expensive because we calculate the price according to the number of canes used, that is why we are begging the government to include us onto the one district one factory program.”-Mr. Opuni averred
A set of bedroom chairs with a center table ranges between three thousand to two thousand cedis depending on the specifics but it depends on the seller, as they all seem to have different prices for same or similar product.
The cane weavers produce different sets of chairs in different sizes, baskets, storage racks, dish racks, shoe racks among others.
