Some local government secretariats in Bayelsa State were Monday shut down by aggrieved workers who protested many months of unpaid salaries.
The angry workers said they were dying of hunger because their local government chairmen owed them salaries between five to nine months.
Workers in Sagbama and Nembe, the local government areas of Governor Seriake Dickson and his deputy, Rear Admiral John Jonah (retd), including those in Yenagoa were the worst hit.
The workers under the National Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) barricaded the council secretariats and said the facilities would remain under lock and key until their salaries and allowances were paid.
The remaining five councils of Ogbia, Brass, Kolokuma-Opokuma, Ekeremor and Southern Ijaw also owed their workers different arrears of salaries
In Yenagoa, placard-bearing workers stormed the council’s secretariat at about 6am, chanting songs to draw public attention to their plight.
The workers held placards with messages such as “The chairman has not told us the problem; the political appointees have been paid up to date”, “We are owed for four months”, “NYSC workers have not got their allowances”, “Our chairman is a sadist”, “Internally generated revenues are in private account, not in council treasury”, “Council workers are not slaves, they should be treated as human beings”.
Speaking on the plight of workers, the Chairman, NULGE, Yenagoa LGA chapter, Mr. Oyoro Kwaka, said the council has been owing them since October 2015.
He asked the council chairman to disclose what how he spent the council’s allocation for November and December.
He alleged that the alerts of revenue arising from the IGR of the council were usually received in private bank account instead of the council’s account.
Oyoro said: “They are owing us October, November, December and January. Our children are at home; they have been sent back home from school because we cannot pay their school fees.
“We did not have money for Christmas, for the first time in this local government, we could not afford to buy a grain of rice for Christmas, yet the politicians bought rice, cows, goats, wrappers and so many other things for themselves. Even now, the politicians have been paid up to date but they refuse to pay us our own salaries for four months.
“Allocations have been coming. In our council, the revenue goes to the chairman’s personal account. The revenue unit has not alert, the chairman gets the alert if any money is paid to the council account. It is not done in any organization, this is a local govermment, the money collected from revenue should go to the local government account.
“If he refuses to pay us we will not vacate this place, we have the backing of the security agencies and we have announced on the state radio that we are embarking on this protest.”
But the Head of Local Government Administration, Yenagoa, Dr. Ovienadu Torutein, admitted that the council owed some categories of workers for three months and others for two months.
He said: “Yes, we are owing some for three months and some for two months. The reason is that the allocation we receive from the Federal Government is not enough and it affects not only this local government but others.
“We are even trying to meet up with payment of salaries more than other local government areas.
“We have a salary wage bill of about N97million or thereabouts and if we add that of the politicians, it is about N108m and we receive less than that. On the average, we are receiving between N70m and N80 million after the statutory deductions.”
He appealed to the workers to exercise patience, insisting that the council was working hard to ensure that their salaries were paid.
But a NULGE official, who did not want his name in print, said the genesis of the indebtedness to workers began during the general elections.
He said huge sums of money were deducted from workers’ salaries during the election that sacked former President Goodluck Jonathan.
He said even during the governorship election, about N50m was deducted from the accounts of some council.
