Olu Samuel, Lokoja

Cement manufacturing firm,BUA group has said that it longer interested in the 50,000 hecters of land it allegedly squired from Kogi state.

This followed the State assembly’s accusations that the company had not paid dime either as rent on the land of any income taxes on the business for which the land is being used for.

To this end,the Ad-hoc committee in Kogi state asset recovery on Monday summoned BUA group to appear before it on Wednesday to respond to why the company has failed to pay any tax or rent on the piece of land in the last ten years.

However,BUA Group in a letter addressed to the State, said it has yet to take possession and “has never utilised the land.

It cited the following reasons, “Lack of any infrastructure: Since our invitation by the State in 2012 to invest through that land, there has been no visible effort by the state and successive governments till date to address the issue of access (i.e road infrastructure, roads) that will enable it utilise the land for its intended purpose. Currently, the land is only accessible by water and without the required investments and other
enabling infrastructure, the venture will not be feasible.

According to BUA, “Outcome of Feasibility Studies. We conducted further feasibility studies on the land and found out that only about 30% of the land is suitable for our investment with the rest 66% consisting of rocky, hilly, and undulating areas which is not suitable for its intended purpose.”

The organisation wrote further, “Finally due to the reasons enumerated above, and the fallout associated with it, we hereby wish to indicate through this and inform you that we are no longer interested in continuing with our proposed investment.”