Bayelsa gov orders arrest of official ‘collecting salaries of 300 workers’

Seriake Dickson, governor of Bayelsa state, has ordered the arrest of a local government official for allegedly collecting the monthly salaries of 300 persons for years.

Daniel Iworiso-Markson, commissioner for information and orientation, disclosed this on Monday at a town hall meeting on civil service reforms in Yenagoa local government area of the state.

Iworiso-Markson said the undisclosed official, an accountant in one of the local government areas at the central senatorial district, defrauded the local government for many years until he was exposed.

He said the scam was discovered during staff verification. The official, he said, had defrauded the local government of hundreds of millions, acquiring choice houses, estates and parcels of land across the state.

“Recently, Seriake Dickson had to order the arrest of an official of a council. He was collecting salaries of 300 people. Yearly, the officer fraudulently receives hundreds of millions of naira,” he said.

“That is in just one LGA and there are many places like that in the state. Some people are employed in the civil service today, yet there is no document in their files. Instead, they were employed with the affidavit. The same people who do not have any documents and qualifications are collecting salaries of grade level 14 workers and above.

“At the Bayelsa State Transport Company, you find a situation whereby you have about 180 drivers, but there are only five or six vehicles for them to drive. You can see the level of rot in the system. So, if we must be sincere to ourselves, we must all agree to join hands with the government to clean the mess in the system.”