The Bayelsa State Government on Wednesday, failed to make public the total amount of money it inherited from the immediate past administration of Governor Seriake Dickson.
Governor Douye Diri took over the reins of power from Dickson on February 14, 2020 following the Supreme Court judgment which voided the election of David Lyon of the All Progressives Congress and declared him winner of the November 16, 2019 poll.
The government had been under pressure by stakeholders, including the Save Our Unity and Nascent Democracy, a pressure group, to address the people on the state’s financial status.
Following the pressure, the government on Wednesday held its maiden transparency briefing at the Treasury Building, Yenagoa.
However, the Technical Adviser to the Governor on Finance, Mr Maxwell Ebibai, who presented the state’s income and expenditure for the month of February, 2020, kept mum on the total amount of money inherited from the former administration.
He nevertheless, explained that the state posted a negative figure in the month of January, 2020.
Ebibai, who was responding to a question on the issue, said, “You wanted to know if the balance that was carried over from January is the balance that was left by the previous government.
“Let us all be guided that the previous government stayed (in office) until the 14th of February.
“So, it will not be okay that that’s the balance handed over by the previous government. However, with government is an issue of assets and liabilities.
“If we want to go into what was handed over, we will be looking at our receivables, our investments, our bank balances. And that’s not what we can take in this outing.”
The governor’s aide, who was Dickson’s commissioner for Finance, further said, “In the month of January, we had a negative figure. And the negative figure from the month of January was N2.381bn.”
He said the state’s total receipts for February, including a net inflow of N11.704bn from the Federation Account Allocation Committee, was N17.69bn.