…Says Local Investors Account For 402,000 Jobs In Benue
Dr Raymond Asemakaha, the Managing Director (MD), Benue Investment and Property Company (BIPC) has said that the company has posted losses of about N1.6 billion in the last five years, prior to his assumption of office.
While he observed that over 4.8 million people in the state were unemployed, he stated that local investors in Benue account for the employment of 402,000 jobs, out of which about 194,000 are women.
The MD, BIPC who disclosed this when members of the Correspondents’ Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), led by its Chairman, Emmanuel Antswen, paid him a courtesy visit said the company was working towards ensuring that the local investors stay in business.
According to Asemakaha, “Benue State has about 402,000 jobs from the local investors, from ‘mama put’, pure water sellers, bread sellers etc and out of this number women make up for 194,000 jobs. We have their data and we will be talking with them to encourage them and ensure that their businesses do not go down.
“I also carried out a forensic audit in the company and that’s when I discovered that this company was posting losses of N1.6 billion. Nobody knew about this, until when I came on board.
“In 2019, they posted losses of N840 million; in 2020, N334 million; in 2021, they posted losses of N174 million; in 2022, they posted losses of N118 million and even in 2023, they posted some losses.
“I also met unremitted tax of N2.1 billion in this office; gratuity of N49 million of people that left BIPC, and were not paid. Pensions were not also paid. ITF also sent us a demand notice of non payment of N79 million.”
The MD also observed that “However, we are not looking at the negative aspects, we are also looking at putting up corrective measures.
“The corrective measures are that we have commenced the payment of some of those things for the past months that I’ve worked here.
“We also had a Mortgage Bank loan of over N600 million. We’ve paid them N20 million and we agreed that we may be completing the payment soon.”
Furthermore, the BIPC boss explained that as part of efforts to arrest the rising unemployment the State Government has plans to establish Micro and Nano businesses to take the unemployed off the streets.
He noted that, “Because Benue state does not have a private owned companies that could employ up to 100 persons at a stretch, it is affecting our teeming youths, it is affecting the state.
“As we speak, Benue state has over 6.3 million people. By the labour law, when you are 18, you are already an adult. Currently, we have about 4.8 million people that are on the streets and do not have jobs.
“If you go to our colleges of education and other high institutions, you will see that there is high turn over of students that are graduates.
“What we want to do is to ensure that at the end of every quarter, we will employ 60 people and by that we will be reducing the unemployment rate on the streets.
“The state’s GDP is 5.8 billion and since the state does not have any private company that produces, even if it saves N20 billion, it moves in forms of capital flight”, he lamented.
Asemakaha further noted that to make matters worse, over 63.8 percent of the private companies in the state are dormant, because of lack of support from the Federal Government, arguing that the little businesses that people started have gone down and as such that has put people out of jobs leading to insecurity.
Thus, the administration of Rev Fr Hyacinth Alia was embarking on diversifying the economy, therefore plans were underway handpick those that were doing something differently.
He therefore appealed to the media to support the activities of the company for the overall development of Benue state and the growth of the economy.
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