Dickson: I can no longer borrow to pay salaries

Seriake Dickson, governor of Bayelsa state, has asked civil servants in the state to brace up for tough times, saying the practice of augmenting monthly salaries with bank loans is no longer sustainable.

Addressing journalists on Thursday in Yenagoa, Bayelsa state capital, Dickson said that with a monthly wage bill of N4 billion for workers, coupled with the shortfall in the monthly allocation from the federation account, it would be difficult for government to meet its financial obligation.

He said he would soon meet with stakeholders to devise a policy aimed at solving the problem of salary payment.

“There have to be some discussions with workers and stakeholders. We cannot be borrowing to pay salaries as we have been doing,” he said.

“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, Dickson said 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,” he said.

“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, he urged them 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,” he said.

“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.”