Home / News / Local / Dickson to Bayelsans: Brace up for more economic hard times

Dickson to Bayelsans: Brace up for more economic hard times

Gov. Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa State
Gov. Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa State

CHINEDU WOSU
YENAGOA

Bayelsa State Governor, Henry Seriake Dickson has called on Bayelsans to brace up for more economic hard times following the short falls in its monthly Federation accounts allocations.

The governor also said that his administration cannot continue to be borrowing to pay salaries as has been the case in the recent past.

Dickson said that with a monthly wage bill of N4billion for workers and a major shortfall in monthly allocations from the federation account, it would be difficult for government to meet its financial obligations.

Dickson, in a statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Daniel Markson Iworiso, said steps are already being taken to sanitize the civil service with the aim of blocking wastages and loopholes to ensure greater productivity and effective service delivery.

Dickson said his administration would meet with stakeholders towards devising a policy aimed at solving the problem of salary payment in the state.

“We cannot be borrowing to pay salaries, as we have been doing. Our workforce minus political appointees, we need about N4 billion to pay salaries; the situation is not sustainable and realistic, because of our development agenda.”

Governor assured that, rather than embark on retrenchment of the workforce and the minimum wage, greater emphasis will be placed on professionalism in the civil service in his second term.

He said, “A lot of states are going to have crisis this year, even the federal government itself will face crisis and it is not peculiar to Bayelsa state. It is important that the workforce in Bayelsa State should learn to appreciate these things before they jump here and there instigated by failed politicians, who couldn’t win election, but know how to sponsor demonstrations of old pensioners that they couldn’t pay when they were in office.”

While admonishing civil servants in the state against unwholesome practices such as involvement in partisan politics, payroll fraud and multiple employments, Dickson called on workers to be dedicated to their duties and loyal to the government of the day.

He said, “There are a lot of things going on; people have their names in several vouchers, earning salaries above their grade levels and all of those things are going to be corrected. I don’t also believe that we should reduce the minimum wage but, if our government is getting N3 or N4 billion and our wage bill is N4 billion, then there should be a discussion. I don’t believe that we need to retrench workers because of the economic downturn.”

Dickson finally added that any civil servant found culpable of contravening the civil service rules would be made to face disciplinary measures.

About Global Patriot Staff

Check Also

Bridging energy access gap vital for Nigeria’s economic growth, says NNPC Chief

The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC Ltd) has emphasized the critical importance of bridging …

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *