Tag: Dickson

The Bayelsa State Governor, Mr. Seriake Dickson, said on Thursday the state government would not sack teachers in the state.

Instead, Dickson said the government would train and retrain the teachers for greater productivity.

A statement signed by Dickson’s Special Adviser on Media Relations, Mr. Fidelis Soriwei, said the governor gave the assurance when he inaugurated the Governing Councils of Isaac Jasper Boro College of Education, Sagbama, and the Bayelsa State College of Health Technology, Otuogidi, at the Government House in Yenagoa.

But the governor said only teachers with fake certificates or persons, who refused to be at their duty posts to work had reasons to be afraid of sacking.

He enjoined the chairmen and members of the new governing boards to engage only people who should be in the institutions.

Dickson stressed that his administration would not tolerate the previous practice in the state where unborn children, octogenarians and retirees were dubiously included in the payrolls.

He said the government would provide grants to all state-owned tertiary institutions with effect from this month to beef up their infrastructures and enhance their revenue generating capacity.

He said: “You are self-accounting and self-governing but we will give you grant as you have proposed. We expect you to sit down with your management and get only those staff that you need to run effective courses and programmes. Indeed, the only constant factor is the academic factor because they are academic institutions. You need more academic staff.

“The former ways of opening gates of employment to everybody, including unborn children, people who stay away in Lagos and are collecting money, people who are as old as 80 years or more, who should have retired has to stop. You have to save that money for your institution.

“You must take firm decisions as a council. This year will witness a lot of training by all cadres of public servants, especially teachers. Our policy is not to sack any teacher unless they don’t go to work, unless they have fake certificates, or they have committed any other acts of misconduct.

“Our policy from this year is to ensure that teachers go through the period of training and retraining. There is already a bill before the House of Assembly that would mandate certification for all teachers in all schools in this state.”

The governor also mandated the newly inaugurated boards to strengthen the capacity of the two institutions.

A former Minister of Aviation, Alabo Tonye Graham-Douglas has lauded the Bayelsa State Governor, Seriake Dickson over the execution of projects with direct impact on the lives of the people.

The Ijaw leader and former minister hailed Dickson for the establishment of the University of Africa, Toru Orua, among other critical projects.

Graham Douglas said that it was proper for a state like Bayelsa which he described as the national habitat of the Ijaw people to have three good universities.

The elder statesman said that all the universities in Rivers State were cited in the upland leaving the riverine communities inhabited by the Ijaw people with none.

A statement by the Special Adviser to the Governor of Bayelsa State on Media Relations, Mr. Fidelis Soriwei, stated that Graham-Douglas made the comment while playing host to Dickson in Port Harcourt, Rivers State yesterday.

The Bayelsa Governor had visited the four-time Minister to felicitate with him.  The former minister lauded the governor for his exemplary leadership qualities.

He said, “We also like you to note that you are an indispensable factor in the life of the Ijaw people, and you have carried all of us along. You have been very generous and congratulations on some of projects you have carried out in our national habitat.

“I am looking forward to the day you will commission the University of Africa. There is nothing wrong in having three solid universities in Bayelsa.”

Bayelsa State Governor Seriake Dickson yesterday directed the implementation of the report of the Committee on Civil Service Reforms.

He said payroll must be cleaned to prevent fraudulent characters not qualified to receive salary from the government.

The governor said the younger generation of unemployed graduates could only be employed, if endemic payroll fraud was tackled.

A statement by the Special Adviser to Governor Dickson on Media Relations, Mr. Fidelis Soriwei, quoted the governor as having made the comment yesterday while speaking at an interactive session with labour leaders in Yenagoa.

He stressed that Bayelsa will not encourage payment to non-deserving people.

Dickson said the scarce resources should be used for building more roads, bridges, schools, health facilities and others.

According to him, while most older states have a wage bill of N2 billion, Bayelsa’s is over N6 billion (state and local governments) because of activities of fraudulent people.

He lamented that the state has the highest wage bill despite its low Internally Generated Revenue base, which he said was N500,000 million per month on the average.

The governor added that the recurrent burden on the state has become too high, as civil servants earned twice the income of their counterparts in other states.

He said: “By the end of January, implementation of the reforms must begin. We should take out the people falsifying their documents, those involved in fraudulent practices. Bayelsa cannot be for the payment of salary to people who don’t deserve to earn it.

“I want to build more roads, more bridges; clean up the payroll, so that we can clean up the space for the employment of young graduates. The young ones must the employed so that they can earn a living. I don’t think they will be like the ones who will be employed and they go to Lagos and Abuja without working.

“We want people who are productive, we should stop the sense of entitlement, the state payroll should be more than amnesty payroll and those who are employed must be trained and must be productive.

“We want to employ more young people, we have to take out the deadwoods, we have to get out those who will wait to get alert without going to work, those without certificates.

“If we don’t take urgent actions, this state will not be able to produce civil servants with the right ethos to compete with their counterparts in other states. We have to work hard to ensure that the state does not grind to a halt. We have to stop crooks from damaging our state.

“However, before we can employ our youths, we should take out all these people who are falsifying documents, those involved in fraudulent practices, those without certificates.”

Dickson said he would not tolerate complaint of inability of the councils to pay salary from this month.