Bayelsa State Governor, Mr. Seriake Dickson, says his administration’s ongoing verification of civil servants is not intended to retrench workers.

Dickson, represented by his deputy, Rear Admiral John Jonah (retd.), stated this during the monthly Transparency Briefing in Government House, Yenagoa, on Thursday.

The governor was apparently referring to fears in some quarters that his government had marked over 500 civil servants, who allegedly supported the All Progressives Congress in the just-concluded governorship election, for sanctions.


 
He, however, dismissed speculation that the ongoing workers’ verification was targeted at retrenching workers for their partisan posture before and after the governorship poll.

Dickson said though the decision of some civil servants to openly campaign for political parties of their choice was wrong and against the Civil Service Rule, the government did not give any directive for sanctions and stoppage of salaries of such workers.

The governor said, “On the issue raised by some 500 workers in the state, to the best of my knowledge, there is no plan by the government to retrench any worker.

“However, we must add that although the partisan posture of some workers during the election was wrong, there is no plan to sanction or retrench anyone over that.

“The verification being conducted by the establishment committee is to look inwards and examine ourselves as an administration. We are doing this due to the consistent deficits we are experiencing. This is why there are no government officials on the committee.

“We have asked them to help check and also find other ways of raising revenues. If they come out to say, the figure we have is correct, so be it. If they say we have some addition, we will check again. Things at the moment are hard and it is a challenging moment for us as a state.”

On the income profile of the state, Dickson announced a deficit spending of N1.713bn in November, 2015, saying a total of N4.804bn accrued to the state.