The Bayelsa State Government has re-assured its workforce of its preparedness to pay full salaries at the end of November, with a view to cushioning the financial hardship caused by Nigeria’s current economic situation.
The Deputy Governor, Rear Admiral John Jonah (Rtd), gave the assurance during the transparency briefing for the month of September, 2016 at his office in the Government House, Yenagoa.
He explained that, the 50% salary owed in the month of February, 2016 would be paid alongside that of October, to make full payment.
Cashless System
the Deputy Governor stated that the government was still committed to the payment of the salary arrears owed the workers.
“We understand there is this fear that, the past halves would be forgotten. No! We don’t need to be afraid. We want to reassure our workers that the government would be doing this from time to time until we pay up the whole arrears. After all, it is your own money,” Rear Admiral Jonah stressed.
While presenting the income and expenditure profile of the state, he said from 2017, the state government would operate a cashless system of collecting Internally Generated Revenues (IGR) to check leakages.
He announced a gross inflow of 11.07 billion Naira saying that the amount was made up of 13% derivation of 4.2 billion Naira, exchange differential 2.2 billion Naira, statutory allocation 1.8 billion Naira, Petroleum Profit tax 1.1 billion Naira, Budget support 1.1 billion Naira, VAT 662 million Naira while refund from other states stood at 57 million Naira.
On deductions, he noted that, bond loan amounted to 1.2 billion Naira, restructured bank loans 741 million Naira, Excess crude account loan facility 126 million Naira, Commercial agricultural loan schemes one and two 162 million Naira, foreign loans 29 million Naira and salary bailout of 16 million Naira totalling 2.3 billion Naira which brought the net inflow to 8.7 billion Naira.
He, however, pointed out that, an IGR of 736 million Naira increased the amount available for spending to 9.4 billion Naira from which 9.7 billion Naira was expended resulting to a negative balance of 267 million Naira.
The Deputy Governor also said that “the expenditure include recurrent payment of 2.9 billion Naira, capital payment 2.4 billion Naira, civil servants’ salaries 2.5 billion Naira, bank loan repayment 1.5 billion Naira, salaries for political appointees 160 million Naira and provision for IGR collection 69 million Naira”.