Bayelsa State Governor, Chief Seriake Dickson says his administration has concluded plans to reduce the overbearing recurrent expenditure of government and minimise waste with a view to funding critical sectors of the economy.

Hon. Dickson stated this in a meeting he held with permanent secretaries in Government House, Yenagoa, following the dissolution of the state Executive Council.

He said it has become imperative to make a conscious effort to reduce the government recurrent expenditure because of the plethora of projects and programmes government plans to execute.

The governor noted that government needed to devise a workable plan to realise its vision as outlined in the restoration agenda for the state.

While soliciting the cooperation and support of the Permanent Secretaries, Chief Dickson said human capital development, health care, road construction and other critical infrastructure would be accorded priority attention.

The Governor also underscored the need to enhance the civil service towards making it  result-oriented and urged the permanent secretaries to partner with government to deliver the dividends of democracy, pending the re-constitution of the state Executive Council.

According to him, Government will ensure the provision of functional health care centres in all the communities as well as build general hospitals in all the local government headquarters.

He further stated that government would undertake the upgrading of primary health centres in order to check infant and maternal mortality rate, especially in the rural areas.

“Government needs to break the cycle of half illiteracy which is the root cause of poverty, violence and criminality. To this end, we ’ll build functional primary schools in every community and upgrade secondary and tertiary schools”, the governor said . Governor Dickson said his vision is to have a compact, well-trained, highly-motivated and result-oriented civil service, pointing out that a state can only be as strong and vibrant as its civil service.

The expectations, Dickson observed, are high, assuring that government would re-double efforts to transform the state and warned that he would not tolerate any sobatage towards this end.

Responding, the Head of Service, Mrs. Gloria Izonfuo, congratulated the Governor on his electoral success and expressed readiness to work with Governor Dickson’s administration towards actualising set goals.

She also pledged the support of the permanent secretaries as well as the civil servants.