Benue people, Dangote and tales of Benue Cement Company

Governor Gabriel Suswam had taken a swipe on former Governor George Akume’s administration for its inability to carry along the Mbayion community, playing host to Benue Cement Company Ltd (BCC) while signing the core investor agreement with Dangote Group. “I am faulting the agreement with Dangote because things were handled in a haphazard manner which neglected the community and Dangote Group has not defined the interest of the people,” the governor maintained.

Suswam took this position while mediating in a peace talk between Dangote Group, Mbayion community and other stakeholders at Government House, Makurdi recently. He noted that the hostile environment will not provide dialogue but expressed hopes that a solution would soon be found to the disagreement.

In the same vein, the Benue State House of Assembly had accused Dangote Group of Companies of excavating large quantities of limestone at the cement factory in Gboko to feed some of its outlets outside the state. The House took the position during one of its sittings when Mr Wilfred Bula, representing Gboko East constituency, raised a motion of urgent public importance on the floor concerning activities of the Dangote Group.

The House had also frowned at the environmental hazards in the host community arising from the activities of Dangote Group and resolved to compel the management to produce the current environmental impact assessment report in Gboko. It also directed the cement company management to pay outstanding taxes amounting to N683,339,955.65 into the coffers of Board of the Internal Revenue.

How it started

The Benue Cement Company (BCC) Plc, Mbayion in Gboko local government area, Benue State, was acquired by Dangote Group of Companies through a bidding process. The enabling law of privatization is such that due diligence is first carried out then, bidding. But in the case of BCC Plc, Dangote bidded before carrying out due diligence.

The government and people of Benue State viewed this act as an abuse of due process. Former governor of Benue State, George Akume and former Minister of Industries, Dr. Iyorchia Ayu, who led the protests promised that the last of their blood will be dropped in the take over of BCC by the Dangote Group.

However, along the line, Dangote later took over the affairs of the company without both men explaining to the Benue people how the matter was resolved. When hope was nearly lost by the people holding state government shares, the Benue Investment and Property Company Limited (BIPC) went to court in their bid to stop Dangote Group from acquiring BCC. But the then governor, Akume, asked the BTPC to walk away from the court and so the matter died.

It was a skewed process

Isaac Angbande, a Senior Special Assistant to Governor Gabriel Suswam on Agriculture and Food Security, who is also a community leader in Mbayion, equally faulted the procedure that led to Dangote Group’s took over of BCC. He observed, “as far as privatization in this country is concerned, all the rules were bent in the case of BCC Plc. I mean, there were some kind of misgiving in the policy process involved in the selection of a core investor.”

According to him, BCC was slated to be privatized along Ashaka Cement in an alphabetical order, but along the line, things got out of way. “We protested out of the fear that Dangote had not produced one bag of cement before and we were afraid that it would lead to job abandonment,” he stated.

The community leader, however, accepted that since Dangote Group took over affairs of the company, there have been improvements in the company’s capacity utilization.

He said, “we understand that more than 300 trucks lift cement from the factory everyday. But what is confusing is that I don’t know what happens to BCC’s sister companies. BCC has lost its name. What we have here is Dangote Cement but remember that though Ashaka Cement was bought over by Blue Circle and finally Lafarge, it still holds its status, but in the case of BCC, it is an extension of Obajana Cement.”

Angbande lamented that the benefits accruable to Gboko local government and Mbayion community, in particular, were not what they get. “Last year alone, he posted the profit after tax of well over N14 billion. So, if you come and look at Gboko the way it is now then, something is absolutely wrong,” he lamented.

Dangote and CSR

In the area of Corporate Social Responsibility pact, Angbande said Dangote has given scholarship of N10 million per annum to the students of Mbayion origin, built some blocks of classrooms in some selected schools and sunk some boreholes. He said Dangote has extended electricity provided by the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) to the community.

The way forward

For the way forward, Angbande said because of the desire of the community to train students in the sciences and develop its manpower base, Dangote Group should allow the community to collect N100 per unit of cement produced in the factory and called on government to revisit the issue of BCC privatization so as to correct errors that happened during the privatization process.

Workers’ lamentation

A staff of BCC who pleaded anonymity told our correspondent that the management was trying in the area of payment of salaries. He, however, decried the lack of allocation of cement to the staff (as incentive) and appealed to the management to restore it to serve as motivation, as it was the case before Dangote took over the affairs. “Unfortunately, we don’t have a union in the company to fight for us. If you people can make a case for us, we will be happy because they don’t allow us to have one,” the worker stated.

Another staff who works on mobile plant also confirmed the regular payment of staff salaries. He, however, said the salary was grossly inadequate, given the quantum of work done per day. “We are just managing what they pay us,” he said.

He also decried the heavy tax cut. “If they stop the deductions, we will like it. Some other facilities such as staff allocation, we don’t have it now. BCC of yester-years used to have the facility,” he recalled.

A transporter, Mr Terna Atetan, who transports cement from the factory, said both Dangote Group and private transporters were being treated equally on the basis of first come, first served. “The more you buy your ATC, the more you lift your product. Not like before when you would pay for cement but the management will still be delaying your products. If you are able to buy about 100 trucks, you go in and load 100 trucks without delay,” the transporter explained.

We don’t want this name change

The District Head of Ukpekpe in Mbayion community, Chief Samuel Ishi Yonguigba, said there had been infrastructural improvements in the area since Dangote took over the management of the cement factory. He said boreholes, blocks of classrooms as well as expansion of a dam at Tse-Kucha with award of scholarships to students, had been carried out.

The local chief, who appealed to Dangote Group to open more roads in Gboko local government area and assist women improve their local businesses through granting of soft loans, also called for the employment of youths to keep them busy to avoid clashes with the management.

He said the community received the report of a change of BCC’s name with mixed feeling and appealed to management to restore the company’s initial name, pledging continuous mobilization of his subjects to support Dangote Group’s operations in the area.

Efforts to get Dangote Group to respond to the issues raised by the community and the Benue State government failed. For two weeks, our reporter called the head of Corporate Communications, Dangote Group, Mr Tony Chiejina for his reactions. He also sent him an emaim, which was not replied. Mr. Chiejina kept promising to respond, but he did not.