African Engineer: Stephen A Oknor

In the early 1970s, Stephen Oknor was a senior engineer and was second in charge of mechanical engineering workshops in the Faculty of Engineering at Kwame Nkrumas Science and Technology University (KNUST) in Kumasi. By the end of the decade, the son of the Volta region had taken over from his boss, Essilfie, a British-trained technician from the central region. He also partnered with black American technical engineer Medicus N Washington to work on cutting-edge metalwork at Suame Magazine, Ghana’s largest informal industrial zone, home to about 27,000 craftsmen and apprentices at the time. Established GAMATCO Ltd, a shop. ..

Stephen Oknor was a tall man with a light brown complexion and a lantern chin. He was a man with few words, and these were spoken difficult because of the obvious stuttering. What he lacked eloquently was supplemented by sound technical knowledge and metalworking techniques that were most previous generations of his contemporaries. At the time of Ghana, the skills needed to manufacture precision gears were limited to KNUST and some state-owned workshops such as the Railroad Workshop at Takoradi’s location. Indeed, until GAMATCO opened in Suame Magazine in 1980, there was no gear manufacturer in the informal engineering department.

GAMATCO Ltd was one of the new engineering companies founded by KNUST’s Technical Consultants Center (TCC) when it opened its first Intermediate Technology Transfer Unit (ITTU) in Kumasi’s Suame Magazine. Funded by the UK Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG), in 1979 it became possible to import machine tools for four engineering workshops. Three of these new companies, including GAMATCO, started their business in a workshop borrowed from ITTU. Among the machine tools imported and sold to GAMATCO Ltd were milling machines, hobbing machines and molding machines capable of cutting the types of gear teeth required for replacement parts for automobiles, motorcycles and industrial machines.

Gear forming is one of the most technically complex operations in basic metalworking. Without the advanced skills of Stephen Oknor and Medicas Washington, the car wouldn’t have been useful. These two talented technicians trained workers on all relevant skills and quickly manufactured gears using all three techniques of milling, hobbing and molding. Initially, the main market was replacement parts for popular Japanese motorcycles such as Honda, Suzuki, Kawasaki and Yamaha. But soon, they began producing original parts for the Tomos motorcycle assembly plant in Kumasi, Yugoslavia. At the time, this was the only example in Ghana of an informal sector company supplying original parts to international manufacturers.

Medicus Washington left KNUST in the early 1980s and returned to the United States. Stephen Oknor continued his work at GAMATCO alone. His lucrative contract with Tomos disappeared with the collapse of Yugoslavia, forcing him to rely on the replacement parts business again. Nevertheless, he is one of the brave pioneers who have shown that Ghana’s informal sector industry can raise the bar in terms of complexity, quality and precision to compete at the international level. You should remember.