By DORATHY ANINGE

The Benue Investment and Property Company Limited (BIPC) says it has recovered over N133 billion from its properties at Nyiman Layout, Makurdi.

BIPC Group Managing Director (GMD) Dr Raymond Asemakaha, who made the disclosure in Makurdi while interacting with newsmen, said that the properties were given out to individuals from 2004 to 2008 without payment.

The GMD said that on assumption of office, he discovered that staff of BIPC were not paid for seven months and that part of the recovered money was used to settle staff salaries.

He said that another part was used to establish the BIPC bread factory.

Asemakaha said that there were so many anomalies in the company and that what was on ground was not yielding profit.

The GMD stated that the company needed to diversify and redirect the economy, and that led them to the opening of micro businesses today.

“We introduced the bread factory, water factory, nails and fertiliser and have leased out 71 bikes to commercial motorcycle riders through a hire purchase scheme.

“We take money gotten from the sale of our bread to the Microfinance Bank, which is the Novus under BIPC, and then our youths go to borrow the money and do business in Benue.

“By that we mitigate the cash flight from Benue and make deliberate effort to make sure we hold the money in the system.

“In just one year of resumption in office, we have employed over 580 staff and given indirect jobs to over 3,080 indigenes of Benue who sell our bread at the roadside,” he stated.

The GMD further said that the company’s beer factory was 84 per cent completion, and the equipment was 100 per cent on ground.

He announced that in the next seven days BIPC would be bringing in about 41 containers in one day, as these are the efforts put in place by His Excellency to boost the economy of Benue.

“After looking at the records and doing an assessment analysis, it was discovered that Benue was number one in beer consumption in 2012 and 2016 and number two in 2019.

“We decided to make our money return to the state so that our people can have value for their money.

“We are going to employ not less than 1000 staff, both direct and indirect, while our ingredients for the beer would be 65% local materials of cassava and rice, which would be gotten locally from our farmers, where they farm the produce, and we buy directly from them.

“Our juice factory is to kickstart by October 1, 2025, with a total capacity of 65,000 and 100 per cent installed, as we are expecting the manufacturer to come in August to test run so we can start producing orange and mango juice.

“We want to set a standard that we would determine the prices of oranges, as Benue has one of the best oranges in the country, and they are being sold to the North at exorbitant prices, so we would want to halt these by giving them our own price when they come to buy directly from us,” he added. (NAN)