Like most of Nigeria's other 36 states, Bayelsa owes its civil servants salary areas and is struggling to clear them due to falling oil prices which have significantly reduced its revenue. In Bayelsa, the civil and public servants being owed about five months’ salaries by the Governor Seriake Dickson-led administration can no longer meet their personal and family obligations.
According to local accounts, many of them are said to be unable to pay their bills, children’s school fees and service their accommodation expenses. Due to their inability to pay transportation fares, most of them can no longer go to their work places or attend church, while persons who managed to go end up begging for fares to return back home.
One civil servant said he stopped going to work because the government had not paid him since November 2015. Working as a manager in the government-owned Izon Ibe Community Bank, the worker said he was surprised that Governor Dickson did not fulfil his promise to clear the salary arrears.
He added: “I work in the state-owned micro-finance bank but since November, I have not been paid. I can’t go to work because I need to look for something to do to feed my family. It has been very tough and surviving in Bayelsa State has become so difficult.
“I wonder why an oil-producing state like Bayelsa cannot pay salaries. We learnt that states like Ebonyi and Taraba, with one of the least allocations, still pay salaries but here, we are working in an oil-producing state without salaries.”
Also, two ladies working for the state government were sighted on Imgbi Road in the capital Yenagoa, on Wednesday, begging passers-by for N100 to go home after attending a morning church programme in the area. Although many people turned them down, the duo leapt up in joy when eventually a Good Samaritan gave them N500 to go home.
Recently, Governor Dickson is said to have approved the payment of a month’s salary for the civil servants but most of them had no balance left in the accounts after their banks deducted arrears of unpaid loans. One food vendor, who identified herself simply as Emilia, said the hardship has affected her so much as most of her customers no longer patronise her shop.
Emilia added: “Before, my small shop used to bubble with patronage and I would finish selling before 9pm every day. However, everything has changed as I have reduced the quantity I cook, yet I can’t finish selling my food even up to 12am and I am even considering closing my shop.”
Most Bayelsans have blamed the development on the leadership style of Governor Dickson, saying he stifled the economy on assuming office for a second term. One Bayelsan, identified simply as Emmanuel, wondered why the government was claiming that the state is poor when Governor Dickson said he opened a dedicated account where he saved for the rainy day.
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