Bayelsa State Government has asked
its workforce to brace up for the global economic challenge, as the practice of
augmenting monthly salary with bank loans is not sustainable.
With a monthly wage bill of N4
billion for workers coupled with the shortfall in the monthly allocation from
the Federation Account of between N3 to N4 billion, the State Governor, Hon.
Seriake Dickson said it would be difficult for government to meet its financial
obligation.
Speaking with journalists on
Thursday in Yenagoa, Dickson said his administration would meet with stakeholders
towards devising a policy aimed at solving the problem of salary payment in the
state.
According to him, 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, “There have to be some
discussions with workers and stakeholders. 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.
While allaying fears of workers, the
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.
“A lot of states
are going to have crisis this year, even the federation itself will face crisis
and it’s 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,” he said.
While admonishing civil
servants in the state against unwholesome practices such as involvement in
partisan politics, payroll fraud and multiple employments, the Governor called
on workers to be dedicated to their duties and loyal to the government of the
day.
“There are a lot of things
going on; people have their names in several vouchers, earning salaries above
their grade level 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.
The governor added that any civil
servant found culpable of contravening the civil service rules would be made to
face disciplinary measures.
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