Three days to his first anniversary as governor, Douye Diri of Bayelsa said in Yenagoa on Thursday that he would offset gratuities and pension liabilities he met upon assumption of office.
“We found that people who had served in the Bayelsa Civil Service and retired were not paid gratuities and pensions,’’ he said at an interactive session with newsmen to mark the anniversary.
“It extends beyond the immediate past administration.
“So, we resolved to confront the challenge by setting aside N200 million monthly to clear the backlog and from the recent infrastructure refunds, we added another N500 million.
“We have remained committed to the welfare of the workforce and of retirees to the extent that we take
overdrafts from banks to pay salaries when our revenue falls.
“Our wage bill is more than N5 billion and sometimes we get N6 billion as allocation and it becomes difficult, so we have been facing daunting challenges.
“We shall complete the three senatorial roads started by my predecessor and we have injected N1 billion to rehabilitate internal roads which we met in deplorable state of disrepair.
“We have also started a couple of new projects for the benefit of our people,” Diri said
The governor said his administration came at a time “when we had lost hope and God in His miraculous way gave us a miracle.
“We came in to behold a floodgate of litigation which kept us standing on one leg, but we also overcame.
“The year 2020 to some, was a very challenging and very bad year, but for us in the present administration, it was a very good year because we waded through all the challenges including dwindling revenues.’’
Diri called on the media to be objective and offer constructive criticisms to the government as the media was a critical institution in a democracy, adding that he remained an advocate of free press.
He applauded a recent criticism that revealed that a contractor engaged to provide solar lights at the Etegwe roundabout in Yenagoa was using substandard materials.
Diri said that he set up an investigation following the reports of poor illumination at the project site and found that rather than use 100 watts solar bulbs, the contractor installed 60 watts bulbs.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), reports that Diri was sworn in as Bayelsa governor, on Feb. 14, 2020 following a Supreme Court verdict on Feb. 13, 2020 that sacked the former Governor-Elect, Chief David Lyon. (NAN)
