Firm Apologises To Benue People Over Water Pollution

The management of Pure Biotech Company Ltd has apologised to the people of Benue State over the discharge of untreated effluent with sludge from the facility into River Benue at Bezu village on the Makurdi-Gboko Road.

It promised that such negligence would never happen again. The corporate communication and public relations manager of the company, Stephen Numbeve, gave the apology in a briefing titled: “Advancing, the Ethanol Industry Vs Pollution on Benue River – the True Story.” He said they have installed a N7.5 billion state-of the art effluent treatment plant (ETP) adding that “now, all solid and liquid wastes are to be converted into biogas, fertiliser, and even the treated wastewater.”

The company’s spokesperson lamented the huge loss the company incurred during the sealing off of the company for two weeks by the National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA), but said the most important thing is that the company has learnt its lesson.

According to him, “You were all aware that our factory was sealed for about two weeks by NESREA from 17th April 2023 and was unsealed on the 29th of the same month after complying with stipulated conditions for unsealing in line with the environmental laws, because of the sludge from a by-product (bio-gas) that was allowed to move into a ‘Saver Pit,’ which got filled-up at a time the engineers had shut down operations for the day, the  sludge then spilled down the drains into the river without pre-treatment, we regretted the situation.”

Numbeve disclosed that, “the cassava is supplied mainly by local farmers in over 10 states of Benue, Kogi, Nasarawa, Taraba, Niger, Cross River, Oyo, Ogun, Ekiti, Edo and Ondo and is as well utilizing about 1,100 metric tons of dried cassava and 3,200 metric tons of fresh cassava daily with 30,000 farmers, processors, distributors and factory workers engaged in the value chain.