The rot in the Bayelsa State civil service has been described as unimaginable, mind-boggling, anti-development and disgusting. In fact, the state’s public sector is notorious for all kinds of criminal enrichments and sharp practices.
The public sector has over the years served as a cash cow for a gang of financial rapists and vicious Buccaneers masquerading as permanent secretaries and directors, who worked hand in gloves with corrupt politicians. The system was so battered that it negated the age-long principles of neutrality and anonymity of the civil service.
It threw up a politically-active worker. Indeed, civil servants especially permanent secretaries and directors jumped into the murky waters of politics. They were so powerful that they determined who got what, when and how. They were brokers, negotiators, lobbyists and king makers on the corridors of power. No politician survived the gang-up of the civil servants.
Yes. Citizens lamented the unprofessional activities of most senior workers, who controlled the political system because they were stupendously rich. They owned mansions, fleet of exotic cars and hotels. They lived far beyond their salaries and as thin gods lorded it over the entire state. It was obvious that they were duping their state through various sharp practices.
Stakeholders were helpless as Bayelsa groaned under the excesses of the civil servants especially the permanent secretaries and directors. Successive administrations were indicted for betraying the state by treating the perpetrators of financial crimes as the untouchables. Observers watched as revenues that accrued to the state were used to fund the insatiable financial appetite of corrupt workforce.
Bayelsa public sector of fraud
Like the wind that exposes the anus of a fowl, the incumbent Bayelsa State Governor Seriake Dickson has revealed the sources of dubious wealth of the civil servants. They operated a multi-billion naira fraud empire in the state’s public service.
Dickson is not treating the matter with kid gloves like his predecessors. The governor has made the difference; succeeding where others failed. In the interest of the state’s progress and development, the governor embarked on a voyage to dismantle the fraudulent empire.
The governor was jolted in 2012 when he took over the mantle of leadership and discovered that the monthly wage bill of civil servants was above N5bn. Despite its small population, Bayelsa was ranked among Kano and Lagos states, with higher population figures, on monthly wage bills. Also N1.7billion was expended monthly to pay the salaries of workers in the eight local government areas.
While the governor paid the outrageous salaries in his first term, he initiated comprehensive multi-sectorial probes into the fraud empire. Various committees were inaugurated with a mandate to identify the problems with the public sector and to make recommendations. His Deputy, Rear Admiral John Jonah (retd.) supervised the committees.
Casualties of Dickson’s public sector reforms
After surviving a gang-up and emerging victorious for his second term in office, Dickson settled down to implement reports of the various committees. It was the beginning of sanitizing the system and cleaning the payrolls. The reforms, which commenced in earnest, came with many revelations.
The various reports indicted the system. The civil service was replete with cases of people benefitting from multiple employments. Some senior civil servants received multiple salaries with names of unknown and underage persons they smuggled into the payroll.
Some persons worked as senior civil servants with fake, computer generated certificates. Some persons were benefitting from indefensible promotions against the civil service rules. The system was dominated by pension fraudsters, age falsifiers, ghost workers, beneficiaries of inherited employments among others.
In fact, overaged personnel, primary schools kids, dead workers, and Diaspora workers were all drawing salaries from the state treasury. Bayelsa was bleeding as money meant for development disappeared into the huge pockets of civil servants.
Preliminary reports threw up further bizarre discoveries. Over 8000 civil servants got their appointments by inheritance. Without going through the established due process for recruitments, the indicted workers were brought in by their friends, parents and relatives who left the system to replace them. This number contributed to the over-bloated wage bill bugging down the state.
People were discovered to have sold appointments for N250,000 each. They also engaged in other employment racketeering especially at the local government level. Thousands of redundant administrative officers were drawing salaries. Most of them never reported to work. They only got credit alerts through their various bank accounts at the end of the month.
For instance, the report uncovered 500 administrative officers in Sagbama Local Government Area òf the state and a total of 5000 non-academic staff at the Niger Delta University (NDU) and the other state-owned five tertiary institutions in the state.
The report further revealed that 500 workers of the Bayelsa Transport Company (BTC) were receiving salaries for doing nothing. The team of investigators discovered that there were no vehicles in the BTC, yet the workers were drawing salaries.
Even the government-owned media houses were not spared. For instance, it was discovered that over 300 employees were drawing salaries in Radio Bayelsa alone while private radio stations in the state operated effectively with 10 to 15 employees.
The report also disclosed that people were devising fraudulent means to escape retirement from the state. Old, feeble and tired workers, who were supposed to have left the system continued to make themselves younger by renewing their ages. In fact, the entire system was messed up.
Systemic losses and Dickson’s big stick
Dickson told bewildered public that the economy of the state was bleeding dangerously and heading for the precipice particularly during the recession. He lamented that a gang of payroll fraudsters was duping the state N1bn monthly amounting to N12bn every year.
To save the state and free money for development, the governor first wielded the bug stick. He ordered the panel coordinated by his deputy to withhold salaries of 4,204 suspected payroll fraudsters. The salaries of the affected persons were deposited in an Unpaid Salaries Account opened by the state government for that purpose.
Those affected by the first move towards sanitizing the system were 1,329 local government employees, 2184 workers from the Primary School Education System and 707 from the pension payroll.
In obedience to the principles of natural justice, the government constituted a judicial commission of inquiry headed by Justice Doris Adokeme to hear complaints of the affected persons to prevent the punishment of innocent workers.
Redeployments and Gains of the Reforms
Besides weeding off fraudulent practices in the system, the reform has brought a new orientation to the state’s workforce. There is a paradigm shift from redundancy to efficiency and from mediocrity to professionalism. Employees are now aware that they must work to earn their pay.
Dickson lamented that 1,090 workers with teaching qualification were redundant at the various local government councils despite the urgent need for teachers in the state. Instead of sacking them, the governor said the affected persons would be sent to the classrooms where their services are needed.
Similar redeployment also hit the state-owned media outfits, the Bayelsa Broadcasting Corporation and the Bayelsa Newspaper Corporation, the publisher of New Waves tabloid. About 222 workers in the media outfits were to be redeployed following a directive from the Head of Service.
The affected workers 86 from the New Waves newspaper and 136 from the Radio Bayelsa. A letter addressed to the General Manager, Bayelsa Newspaper Corporation from the office of the Head of Service described the development as “redeployment of excess staff”.
The letter dated April 6 and signed by the Head of Service, Rev. Thomas Zidafamor, noted that the ongoing reform was to ensure a more efficient and effective workforce.
Zidafamor said: “The governor set up a committee to formulating an overall policy in staffing and funding of these parastatals in the state. Based on the recommendations of the committee, the governor has directed that all excess staff be redeployed away with effect from April 2018.
“Consequently, 86 staff in your nominal roll and payroll have been identified for redeployment. You are directed to notify the affected staff of the decision and deposit their monthly salaries in the state Unpaid Salaries Account in the office of the Accountant-General commencing with April 28 salary”.
The Head of Service advised the affected workers to present themselves to the committee on Screening of Staff to verify their areas of professional competence for the deployment exercise.
The Governing Council and Management of NDU has also keyed into the exercise. About 1700 workers of the university had been penciled down for redeployment, retirement and outright dismissal. The university used to spend over N500m monthly to pay its workers, constituting 70 per cent non-academic staff and 30 per cent academic staff. But it is now surviving on about N350m monthly subvention from the state government.
The reforms are yielding financial dividends to the state. It has brought down the monthly wage bill of the state hitherto in excess of N5bn to about N3.9bn. The wage bill of the local government areas was also reduced from N1.6bn to N1.1bn.
Recently all the caretaker committee chairpersons of the eight local government areas counted their blessings. It their presentations, it was discovered that Southern Ijaw wage bill reduced from N201million to N131million; Ogbia fromN207million to N165; Nembe from N127million to N99million and Brass from N119 to N101million.
Others are, Ekeremor from N192million to N177million; Kolokuma/Opokuma from N109million to N77million; Sagbama from N171million to N130million and Yenagoa from N194million to N147million. The reforms have also reduced the monthly salaries of teachers in the councils from N1.320bn to N1.027bn.
Justifications for Reforms
The government has continued to adduce reasons for the ongoing public sector reforms in the state. Dickson insisted that the rot must be cleaned to ensure a professional and efficient civil service in the state. He said cleaning the system would enable government to lift embargo on employment and absorb new graduates.
Dickson further vowed to hand over a highly professionalized, disciplined and motivated public service sector to his successor. He told residents that the ongoing reform was not witch-hunt but designed to rid the service of all forms of irregularities and sharp practices.
He said: ‘‘The mindset that you can keep your name on the payroll without coming to work is negative and we have to draw the red line now because we want to leave behind a reformed, repositioned, motivated and efficient workforce that can stand the test of time”.
Dickson also directed the committee handling the verification of the state workers to release the salaries of identified genuine workers who were affected by the suspension order. He lamented the rots in the sector and likened the state’s payroll to the voter register where he said all kinds of names could be found.
While saying that genuine workers affected by the exercise would be re-absorbed and redeployed to other areas, he insisted that persons who had no reason to be in the service must go.
“We want to leave behind a reformed, repositioned, motivated and efficient workforce. Whatever is good for this state, we are going to get it done.
”Those who would be affected are citizens, we have to look at genuine issues. We are working to ameliorate the hardships and create other avenues for survival.
“Many states are sacking workers. The central focus is not to sack. It is repositioning.
In this reforms, those with teaching qualification, working in the parastatals, who can teach, the state needs all of them.
“We have ways of absorbing people on the condition that they must be existing workers, they must be committed workers. If you are a worker in Abuja, Lagos Port Harcourt, this state has fed you enough for the past 20 year. Enough is enough”.
Dickson further said his desire was to leave behind an effective, productive and efficient public sector for his successor. The state’s Commissioner for Information and Orientation, Mr. Daniel Iworiso-Markson, has been doing a yeoman’s job in propagating the essence and benefits of the reforms.
Iworiso-Markson averred that as painful as the government’s action was, it was done to avoid a collapse of the state’s public service. He said that the government embarked on a painstaking process of implementing the reforms with a focus on the welfare and wellbeing of persons, who might be affected by the exercise.
He explained that the government was resolute in the redeployment component of the reforms saying the move was to remove the clogs in the wheels of the state’s progress. According to him, it was the decision of the government to screen, train and redeploy workers with specialization in education to schools since the state was in need of teachers.
He said that contrary to the erroneous impression created in some quarters, salaries of the affected persons were being paid into the Unpaid Salaries Account to be released after the redeployment.
He added that to give a human face to the implementation of the reforms, the government made an arrangement to make financial provision for persons found not qualified to be in the system.
Iworiso-Markson said that the plan was for the government to expose such people to training in the area of agricultural and entrepreneurial skills to enable them venture into private businesses.
He said: “The exercise itself is still ongoing and the entire public service is aware. You must note that the names of the people listed for redeployment are those submitted as redundant workers by the general managers and supervisors.
“So Government is saying that this is not sustainable. The onus is on government to bring them in, check their qualifications and redeploy them to appropriate agencies. Anybody with B. ED for instance, would go to the teachers training institute, trained and redeployed. Government would use these people to teach”.
Also the Deputy Governor, Rear Admiral John Jonah (rtd), took a swipe on the opposers of the reforms describing them as unpatriotic individuals and groups.
“The government wants anyone who cares to listen that it has a responsibility to clean up a system that has been bastardized by some greedy individuals who over the years have taken advantage of the loopholes in the public service to perpetrate all forms of fraud.
“We have a responsibility to reform the system within the limits of human imperfection. Like every other process we know this is not perfect but we are working to ensure a fair deal for everyone”, he said.
Jonah insisted thatý the restoration government was working hard to leave behind a robust public service by setting a standard for the next government to leverage on upon resumption.
He said: “We want those opposed to the reforms to know that it is not a witch-hunt but an inevitable exercise to save the public service from near collapse. The government is not selective in the renewed fight against payroll thieves and robbers.
“The right civil service procedures wilýl be followed to disengage those who have either compromised the system in one way or the other or have allowed themselves to be beneficiaries of illegality.
“Contrary to insinuations in some quarters, we are not sacking anybody but those who have been confirmed to have falsified their age, certificates or have promoted themselves arbitrarily will have to go. These are cases that cannot be overlooked.
“However we are mindful of the effect of the action we are taking. So what we are doing is give those affected some form of soft landing by given them three months’ notice or 1 month notice of payment in lieu of their disengagement.
“To show our sincerity in the reforms, we are following the normal procedure as laid out in the civil service rule. As a responsible government we have made it possible for those who due to administrative and humans are caught in the web to seek redress before the judicial commission of inquiry headed by a competent judge”.
Even state’s organised labour declared its support for the ongoing public sector reforms. The workers under the auspices of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) said when completed the reforms would reposition the public service for better productivity.
In a joint address, the state Chairman, NLC, John Ndiomu, said labour believed in building strong institutions to sustain the policies of government for future generations.
He said: “We are of the view that the reforms are intended to respites on the public service sector for better productivity. Congress therefore calls on the government to ensure that the reforms are in line with the public service rules.
“While we agree that there are challenges in the civil service, the reforms should be handled with utmost care. For instance, workers that are wrongly placed at their points of engagement should not be terminated, but the grade levels of such staff should be corrected and properly placed”.
He also appealed to the government to ensure that the ongoing reforms would not lead to the sacking of any genuine worker in the service.
“It is hoped that not too long from now the government will conclude all verification exercises as well as the civil service reforms to enable workers settle down to do their duties without fear”, he said.
Describing the reforms as good for the state, Chairman of the Governing Council and Management of NDU, Prof. Steve Azaiki expressed the council’s readiness to implement the government’s policy of sanitizing the public service.
He noted that a practice where the university solely depended on the state government to fund its over-bloated workforce was unsustainable. He commended Dickson for his bold steps and absolved the governor of any blames in the current shake-up that affected 1,700 workers in the university.
He said: “It was the leadership of the university that listed the affected staff following the outcome of a discreet verification to make for more efficiency, better service delivery as well as create space for the employment of young qualified people, particularly Bayelsans.
“The amount of money that government has been giving to NDU is not sustainable. Suppose oil price falls or there are issues of governance or politics, anything can happen and then the university will collapse. So, we need to look inwards and see how we can come up with a sustainable figure”.
Resistance and protest
As expected, the ongoing implementation of the reforms has generated resistance and protest in some quarters. Recently a group of aged women took to the streets of Amassoma, Southern Ijaw, Bayelsa State to protest their removal from the payroll of NDU.
The women, who were in their late 60s and early 70s, blocked the road leading the university in their area demanding their names to be returned to the payroll. The aggrieved women obstructed traffic and even carried a mock coffin as they lay on the road refusing to give way to vehicular movement.
The women were casualties of the reforms and were reportedly removed for drawing salaries despite reaching their retirement age. But Iworiso-Markson, observed that the protesters were mainly aged people, who could not understand that civil service has age limitation.
He said the detractors of the government were funding the protest instead of explaining to the mothers that the government was doing the right thing. The commissioner said the protesters would rather thank the governor if they understood that the public reforms were meant to secure the future and provide opportunities for their jobless children.
The commissioner said the protesters were among the over-bloated non-academic staff weighing down the university adding that the school had a ratio of 70 percent non-academic staff to 30 per cent academic staff.
He said the affected women were not going to work but were drawing salaries at the end of the month. He said to ameliorate the effects of removing the retired persons from the payroll, the government decided to pay them three-month salaries in lieu of their disengagements.
He said: “The protest is being supported and sponsored by the enemies of the state. Instead of explaining to the women that they had gone beyond the age of retirement and should leave the system as required by the law, these enemies made it look as if the government was set to punish the women.
“But we are engaging them and we know that very soon the women will come to realise that there is age limitation in the civil service. They will soon know that at a certain age a civil servant is expected to leave the system to create spaces for fresh graduates.
“These graduates are the sons and daughters of these women. They roam the streets without jobs because the system has been weighed down by illegalities.
“But the governor has decided to do the right thing. He has done what others could not do by ensuring a vibrant, productive and efficient public sector. The governor needs commendation. He needs to be encouraged to complete the reform because at the end these protesters will be the ultimate beneficiaries.”
The governor also insisted that blackmailers would not arm-twist him and his government to abandon the ongoing public sector reforms in the state. He said the reforms were borne out of his love for the state and his desire to clean the mess in the civil service.
“Blackmail cannot stop me”, he said but noted that the government would look into all genuine complains and address legitimate grievances arising from the reform.
“I won’t accept further fraud against this state”, he declared blaming opposition to the reforms on persons, who institutionalised the fraudulent system and made it look like their rights.
“We must work together to reposition it. We cannot be known as a state with ineffective civil service because what has happened in this state cannot happen in other states”, he said.