Bayelsa State Government, yesterday, said it had uncovered
over N322 million monthly payroll fraud in the eight local government areas of
the state following a verification exercise by the state government....
Governor
Seriake Dickson, who disclosed this at an event to mark this year’s World
Teacher’s Day in Yenagoa, said that the massive fraud in the local government
system and the shortfall in the allocation to the councils were responsible for
the inability of the councils to pay salaries of primary school teachers and
other council workers in the state. •Gov Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa The
governor who was represented by the Commissioner for Education, Mr. Jonathan
Obuebite, also appealed to the striking primary school teachers in the state to
suspend their five weeks old strike in the interest of the pupils and give the
state government some time to address the matter by implementing the
recommendation of the report. As part of the recommendations, he said, a Joint
Account will be open where all the councils will domicile the funds for the
payment of primary school teachers while the state government will augment the
difference, adding that the state government cannot take over the
responsibility of teachers salaries as it was a constitutional responsibility
of the councils. He said: “A special verification committee for the local
governments set up by the state government has submitted its report and has
uncoverd a wastage of over N322 million every month that people are taking from
the system and that is the reason councils cannot pay salaries. The government has
decided that this monster will be fought to a standstill. The committee report
will be submitted to a special Judicil Committee of Inquiry and we are going to
address this issue once and for all. “The councils wage bill for the month is
about N1.2 billion when you minus N300 million from it, that will drastically
bring their salary bill to less than N1 billion and the allocation that comes
to all the councils is less than N1 billion. “This discovery will help shoulder
the burden but as a government and in other to ensure accountability and
transparency , a special account is to be open where all the councils will pay
their contributions and the state government will bring its part to augment the
shortfall, and the committee will now dispense the funds to the teachers in the
state, with this we would have solve the problem we are having.”
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