HOW SOME BUSINESSES NEGATIVELY AFFECT THE PEOPLE AND ENVIRONMENT

The main purpose of setting up a business is to generate income and break even.

Creating jobs and ensuring a healthy environment are secondary and that is why most business concerns, be they filling stations or hotels engage in slave labour and degrade the environment with impunity.

As the rains set in residents of some parts of Asaba are in for some measure of discomfort due to the    actions of some business outfits in their neighbourhood.

Such business organisations have either encroached on the roads, reducing them to single lanes or have taken it upon themselves to flush water from their premises to the roads whenever it rains, even when they know the said roads are without drains.

EL-GAO petrol station and TRIPLE QUEENS HOTEL both located at Koka junction, on the Asaba – Benin Express Way, are two business concerns that have brought pains to residents of Falcon Club road and others who have cause to use the road.

While the Hotel, which is built by the road has claimed half of the road for its parking lot, the filling station ensures that the pools of water in its premises whenever it rains are flushed out to the road, leaving it heavily flooded and thereby endangering the road.

The attention of the relevant authorities of government, especially the Ministry of Environment and the Directorate of Transport, is hereby drawn to this ugly development and it is expected that they would act fast before the situation gets worse.