From: Femi Folaranmi, Yenagoa

 There are indications that the Bayelsa State Government could crack down on the syndicate behind the bloated wage bill in the eight local government councils of the state.

 The state is often listed among one of the highest debtor states of local government workers in the country.

This has mdd the Nigeria Union of Local Government Workers, Bayelsa State chapter, to claim that 14 months salaries are being owed council workers.

Governor Henry Seriake Dickson had, over the weekend, sacked all the eight local government caretaker committee chairmen due to their inability to tackle the wage bill fraud at the local government councils.

Investigations revealed that Governor Dickson had directed the Finance Ministry, every month, to be supporting the eight local councils with at least N200 million for them to meet basic obligations.

In a document obtained by Daily Sun, the June allocation from the Federal Allocation stood at N1.11billion and with statutory deductions of N70 million for pensions and staff training, and bailout repayments of N16.28 million, the net allocations amount to N1.02 billion.

Further investigations revealed that local government workers’ salary bill for the month was N609.17 million and primary school staff salary was N648.73 million, amounting to 1.26 billion.

The implication was that there was a shortfall of N233.2 million which the state government would need to meet aside additional funds to enable the councils pay salaries and additional funds to the provided for the local councils to be administered.

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Commissioner for Local Government Administration, Mrs. Agatha Goma, speaking on the situation, described the situation at the local councils as ‘very pathetic’.

 She lamented that even the release of bailout funds and the Paris Club refunds to the eight local councils could only address the salary bills for two months only.

 “This has been the plight of the Local Governments since 2014 wherein the allocations have been far less than the wage bills. This is inspite of the various intervention efforts carried out by the present administration, including civil service reforms and other policies aimed at addressing the unduly huge wage bills and other fiscal challenges.

“The situation becomes more alarming when we consider the predicament of the individual Local Governments” she said.

 A government source, who craved anonymity, said the caretaker committee chairmen could not muster the necessary political will to deal with the problem because of threats to their lives and family members by the powerful forces involved in the wage bill fraud.

 The source also said Governor Dickson has concluded plans to tackle the problem headlong and bring those behind it to book no matter how influential they might be.

 Meanwhile a chieftain of the All Progressive Congress ( APC) in Bayelsa state, Famous Danumiegha has challenged Governor Dickson to be bold enough to implement all the white papers on the various verification exercise ‎conducted so far in the state and the local government councils.

“The various findings of the verification committee set up by government must be fully implemented if we truly want to save the state from imminent collapse. The issue is not about politics; we must all collectively tell ourselves the truth that very soon we may have no state to call our own given the stark economic reality confronting us as a people.  The task of rescuing Bayelsa from total collapse must begin by all of us so I urge the government to fully implement all the verification exercise to address the issue of over bloated wage bill”