BIPC sets sight on breaking private sector monopoly in Benue

October 21, 2024

The Managing Director of Benue Investments and Property Company Limited (BIPC), Dr Raymond Asemakaha, stated on Monday that the company’s core objective is to break the monopoly of private sectors in the state.

Dr Asemakaha made this remark during an inspection tour of the ongoing construction of a polythene bag factory in Makurdi, a subsidiary of the bakery and bottled water company. He noted that upon completion, the polythene bag factory is expected to employ about 100 youths.

He promised that the company would be delivering and rolling out a new project every quarter. The MD also inspected the progress of the polythene bag factory, as well as ongoing work on another bakery located along the Makurdi/Naka road.

Earlier this year, the company established bakeries and bottled water factories, which led to a significant reduction in the prices of bread and DrtablewaterDrwater in the state.

Speaking to reporters, Dr. Asemakaha emphasised that establishing the polythene bag factory is essential to reducing the amount of money spent on procuring such goods from outside the state. He revealed that polythene bags, table water bags, and labelling are currently sourced from Lagos.

“One of the reasons we introduced polythene bag printing is that we are spending over N27 million printing in Lagos,” he stated. “However, once we start production in the next two weeks, we will be manufacturing nylon bags and pure water bags here, as well as handling the labelling locally, instead of taking our money to different states.”

He explained that the initiative aims to retain cash flow within the state, thereby increasing its GDP.

Dr Asemakaha also announced plans to expand the production of bread and bottled water across Benue State.

“Our intention is to expand our production to other local government areas. We don’t want to concentrate only in Makurdi. We want to reduce the mitigation risk. We plan to extend our services to Otukpo, Gboko, and Katsina-Ala, categorising them in different tiers. I can assure you that we want to deliver and roll out a new project every quarter,” he said.

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