Dickson pays half salary of April, as banks grumble

Mike Odiegwu of The Nation paper writes:

Management of different commercial banks in Bayelsa State, Tuesday, kicked against the decision of the state Governor, Mr. Seriake Dickson, to pay civil servants half of their April salaries in cash and cheques.

Investigations revealed that instead of paying the civil servants through their various bank accounts, Dickson opted for cash and cheque payment apparently to avoid deductions of workers’ financial liabilities by their various banks.
Bayelsa has been in the throes of hardship following the inability of the state government to pay backlog of salaries it owed to different categories of workers in the state.

The government is owing civil servants about six months, local government workers about 13 months and pensioners about eight months.

Dickson could not fulfill the promise he made last weekend to pay workers half salaries, shifting the pay day to Monday, though he said he queried the Head of Service and the accountant for flouting his order.
It was gathered that civil servants went to their various pay points in their ministries to collect half of April salaries by cash and in cheques on Tuesday morning.
One of the civil servants said she collected half of her one month salary in cash describing the money as grossly inadequate.

“I went to my pay point and I was given just half of one month. In fact, I was paid half of April salary. I am confused because I don’t know when other arrears will be paid.

We have not received salary since January, others since December”, she said.

She confirmed that some ministries issued cheques to their workers adding that the government moved cash to ministries’ accounts and asked them to withdraw the money and pay the workers in cash.
She admitted that workers were owing banks huge sums of unserviced liabilities arising from months of unpaid salaries.
But it was learnt that by paying cash to the workers, the government had pitted them against their banks.

A bank manager who spoke in confidence said the development was a violation of an agreement banks reached with the workers’ unions and the government.
He said in several meetings, the banks and organized labour worked out modalities and new percentages of deductions before the half salary was paid.

He said: “We held many meetings with government representatives and labour unions. Initially when full salaries were paid, we used to deduct 50 per cent to service liabilities of the civil servants.

“But based on the prevailing economic problems in the state, we agreed that when the half salaries are paid, we will apply 33 per cent of deductions for the liabilities. We were shocked to notice that the agreement was not obeyed.

“Instead, the government decided to be paying cash to our customers. It is affecting our cash flow but for now, we are still watching”.
He said there would be punishment for default unless the workers on their own return the 33 per cent of the money to service various loans they collected and other liabilities.

Source: The Nation.