The Socio-economic impacts of Bedele Brewery Share Company: A case study on south western Ethiopia

Abstract

In Ethiopia Industrial sector in general and manufacturing in particular suffers lack of appropriate policy for many years like most of developing countries. After lack of encouragement from government for many years, new policy was adopted by Ethiopian government; which focused to solve problem of infrastructure and giving tangible governmental support. As a result, manufacturing sectors expansions was better than another sector in general and brewery industry in particular. However, corporate social responsibility issue was the hidden agenda for many years. Because of this, many households who are living surrounding manufacturing industries are suffering economic, social and environmental problems. So the aim of this study was to examine socioeconomic impact of BBSC in southwest Ethiopia, in the case of Bedele, Agaro and Mettu towns. The study was conducted using cross-sectional data collected in 2018. This study employed a multi-stage sampling approach and a total sample size of 187 households from the stated study areas. The results of Socio-economic impact of BBSC on surrounding community were examined by using of descriptive analysis and logistic regression model. The results indicate that the socio-economic of surrounding community was determined by family size, marital status and being employee of BBSC. According to the result, 58% of the respondents reported that, BBSC is not participating on the social infrastructure construction and 44.9% of them responded BBSC is protecting the environment by not releasing harmful waste materials to the environment. The probability level of BBSC employee to be saving monthly is higher by 7% as compared to non-employee of BBSC. The study result indicates that, employee of BBSC monthly saving is higher than that of non-employees of BBSC. Employee of BBSC and monthly saving has a positive relationship as expected. The probability level of participation in monthly saving of households who have less than 5 family sizes is higher by 7% as compared to those households in the second category. The probability level of participation in monthly saving of single respondents is higher by 53% as compared to married respondents. Depending on this result, married respondents may invest on their family than the single respondents. Depending on the logistic regression result, employees of BBSC are in a better position economically compared to that of nonemployees of BBSC. The participation of BBSC on social infrastructure construction is appreciable but it is not as expected by the society surrounding the area of operation of the brewery. It is observed that the environmental conditions are taken care of by the company by planting waste water treatment plant and through breakage handling. The stakeholders of the company have not enough information about the undertakings of the company. The company has to create awareness about the things that are carried out by the company through different channel of communication. BBSC has to focus on the major problems of the surrounding society and by allocating enough funds. And those infrastructures constructions have to cover wider areas so that the societies around the company grasp equal benefits to that of Bedele town. Finally, the company has to give trainings and workshops to the stakeholders about the environmental protection techniques, water usage and waste water management.