By Giwa SHILE
The Bayelsa State Government on Friday said it was determined to eliminate age and certificate falsification as well as ghost workers from the state civil service, warning the culprits to leave the system.
Governor Seriake Dickson stated government’s commitment to the development during a media chat in Yenagoa, and said there was no going back in the current reforms in the state civil service.
He said the reforms were aimed at sanitising the state public service, noting that the exercise would clean up the system and also play important role in building the state economy.
TBI Africa recalls that the state government said earlier that it prevented payment of huge amount of money to payroll fraudsters in the local government areas.
Government said the recovery of the amount which totaled over N3.9 billion annually was a fall out of the ongoing public sector reforms in the state.
The governor said the reforms were targeted at workers who were due for retirement but refused to leave, age falsifiers, and certificate forgers.
Dickson added that the reforms were aimed at building competence in the civil service. “There is no going back in the ongoing civil service reforms in the state; if you are due to retire, simply do so and give chance for the younger ones to come in.
“If your name is on the payroll and you don’t go to work, we will remove it. The era of over-aged workers has gone and we cannot allow workers with fake degree,” he stated.
The governor expressed worries over loss of dignity of labour in the stae and urged the workers to reverse the trend. “We are ready to free Bayelsa from the grip of unproductivity and irresponsibility.
“We want to clean up the system, especially in local government areas so that they can live up to their responsibilities,” he said.
