From Joseph Uchenna, in Makurdi
The Benue State Transport outfit, BENLINK company Ltd said it has within two (2) years of the current administration reduced gratuity of retired staff to just 19 million naira out of 198 million naira inherited.
This is even as the management said 3 months of salary arrears have also been cleared.
General Manager, BENLINK Ltd Alexander Fanafa who made these disclosures on Friday 26th September, 2025 during an interraction with members of the Correspondents’ chapel in Makurdi, said the company has witnessed drastic overhaul in technical and operational activities.
Mr Fanafa maintained that the Governor, Rev Fr Hyacinth Alia has been responsive in tackling the transport need of the people as well as revamping the transport company
According to him, “hitherto, the company has had issues of perennial flooding, saying the a box culvert was constructed by the State Government to forestall the incident of flooding.
He said, “On 30 October, 2023, the Governor donated 100 vehicles and 3 trucks for haulage to be used in all part of the nation. An ICT has been established for online booking and taxis introduced.
“With the removal of fuel subsidy, the independent transport owners increased the fares but we drastically reduced it and it is still in effect. Disabled persons pay 50 percent of fares with prefential treatment accorded them. Government has secured a permanent terminal site in Abuja, Adikpo and Zaki Biam which has helped to reopen all the routes except in Gwer West and Ukum where there are security challenges.
“We have also, opened new terminals in Sokoto, Zamfara, Kebbi, Katsina and a new one will be opened on Tuesday next week in Ekiti state.
“Our fare from Makurdi to Lagos is just 22,000 while others charge over 42,000.
We were the first to implement full scale 75,000 minimum.
“We have revived the fuel dung in the company making it easy for our vehicles to be fully fueled. We have recruited over 110 drivers in the campany with another 100 engaged as full workers” .
Commenting on the attitude of drivers, the GM intimated that a feedback mechanism for passengers to tell management on the attitude of drivers have been introduced, warning that any driver found to engaging in undisciplinary act, will be sanctioned.
Said he, “We do not allow our drivers to misbehave. We had training for them in collaboration with Federal Road Safety Commission, FRSC. We have monitoring vehicles to all our 120 vehicles and installed speed monitoring devices in all of them. We do not hesitate to dismiss any driver who disconnect the tracking devices.
“We ensure regular maintenance of our vehicle. For those on liaise, we tell them to take their vehicles out, repair and bring back to the company.
“It is unfortunate that our vehicles have been caught in this web of kidnapping. We do not have control over this but have tried to reduce night journeys. We also checked the security flash point areas and tell our drivers to be cautious not to travel in the night.
“Concerning litigations, we have sorted major cases out of court but there are still some pockets in courts”.
Fanafa said in collaboration with the National Agency for Trafficking In Persons, NAPTIP, the company recovered 19 children partícularly one child who was rescued from Lagos and taken back to Zaki Biam in Ukum local government area.
He concluded by intimating that governmment has approved a design for construction of a motel to provide affordable accommodation for passengers, overhaul the entire landscape of the company, construction of plazas in front of the company, adding that they need more vehicles.
