‘Bayelsa Can’t Sustain Monthly Wage Bill’

Bayelsa State Governor,
has Hon. Seriake Dickson said the state government’s wage bill of N4.3 billion for June was too heavy.
The governor stated this when he presented the financial profile of the state for the month of June at the monthly transparency media briefing on Friday in Yenagoa.
According to him, expending N4.3billion on workers’ salaries is unsustainable for the economy of Bayelsa State.
The governor said that N2.6 billion was received by the state government as statutory allocation from the federation account for the month of June, and disclosed that the total derivation of the state was N9.39 billion, while  the total financial inflow to the state stood at N19.09 billion.
Dickson further explained that while the state government had continued to spend huge amount of money to run the government, the internally-generated revenue (IGR) remained minimal.
According to the governor, the IGR of the state for the month of June was N645.39million.
He said the government had in the past one month spent N250 million on payment of money owed retired civil servants by the previous administration.
Dickson said that after making all the payments and deductions, N25.26 billion was left in the coffers of the state as balance at hand.