By Amos Aar
THE GENERAL Manager (GM), Benue Links Transport Company Limited, Mr Alexander Fanafa, has said that he has cleared three months salaries owed staff of the state-owned company for the months of July, August and September 2015.
Mr Fanafa made this known to journalists on Saturday in his office when he declared: “We have just cleared everything about salary arrears that we met in 2015.”
Fanafa added that he has also implemented staff promotions which were stalled for a long time and has commenced instant payment of gratuity on retirement.
These, according to him, are steps towards improving the welfare of staff in order to boost their productivity for effective service delivery.
Apart from the clearance of the 3 months’ salary arrears and staff promotions, the GM disclosed that he has changed the roof of the company’s fuel dump from wooden to iron roofing on the instruction of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA).
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Speaking on the instruction to change the roofing of the fuel dump, Fanafa said: “NMDPRA is still the department of petroleum resources. It’s just a change of nomenclature. They have the duty to supervise where fuel is being sorted more than twenty (20) litres and it is their duty to supervise anywhere fuel is being dispensed.
“So, as part of their supervision, they came around and said that particular filling station, the roof was wood and they said in case of any eventuality, the woods will cause fuel explosion. So, we removed the woods and fixed iron to meet the standard specification where you can keep fuel up to 1000 to 2000 litres or 500 litres even for your domestic consumption. We will continue to store fuel here for our own consumption so that we don’t queue outside and begin to waste time that we would have used for work”.
According to him, the Benue Links filling station which became moribund in the past has been resuscitated now under his leadership to make fuel readily available so as to ensure proficiency of service.
“When I came in, the filling station was abandoned. But we have reactivated it and fuel has always been available for our vehicles,” he stated.
Fielding questions on how much is the cost of the ongoing mass concreting/flooring of the park to mitigate flooding at the premises, Fanafa declined comments, insisting that it’s the responsibility of the governor or his appointees to do that.
“I am not here to discuss the cost of what we are doing with the press. The cost of what is happening, the governor alone can discuss or his appointees. I’m only here for implementation processes so that dividends of democracy reach the people”, Fanafa said.
Speaking further on some other major achievements he has recorded since assumption of office in June, 2023, Fanafa, who said he was only keying into the vision of Governor Hyacinth Alia, pointed out that he started by constructing a standard box culvert and water drainage to control erosion at the company’s headquarters and its environs, saying the company’s headquarter was “a perennial home for flooding”
He continued: “we erected canopies there so that passengers can stay under the shade when it is the sun or rainy season.
“We also approached His Excellency the governor of Benue state that we need our vehicles because when we took over, we had just less than 20 vehicles and all we were depending on was the private partnership vehicles that had leased to us to manage for them. So, His Excellency graciously gave us one hundred hummer buses and that is what we are using to do the transport business.
“When you come here in the night and there is no NEPA, the whole place is always black. We have installed solar light in such a way that the difference between the day and night is completely indifferent.
On other projects in the pipeline, the GM said they are planning to digitalize the company and upgrade the workshop
“We intend to go into e-booking system. We have introduced ICT training center where we are training five staff per each department to enable us move into e-booking so that we will move away from this analogue transaction to a digital transaction.
“We are also making efforts to upgrade our workshop in such a way that we will move into computer detection of the problem of these vehicles so that this issue of trying and error will stop”
In his remarks, Principal Private Secretary to the Governor, Dr Emmanuel Chenge, who said he was at the company’s headquarters for a private visit to the GM lamented that the state-owned company was “left to deteriorate” despite government’s huge investment in it and thanked Fanafa for restoring it’s lost glory.
“I’m here in private capacity. My comments are not because I’m the Private Secretary to His Excellency. I came here to see what he is doing because he is always on social media”, Chenge told journalists.
The private secretary also commended Governor Alia for appointing Fanafa “who knows the field” to restore quality and take it to the desired level. “This is just the beginning”, he expressed optimism.
