State civil servants in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State can't be envied currently following the failure of Governor Seriake Dickson's failure to pay a backlog of worker's salaries as well as pensions.
Guardian newspaper in its daily satirical cartoon has taken a swipe at the Bayelsa State over the unpaid salaries of its workers has amounted to about 5 months according to reports.
In the cartoon, a civil servant-turned-scavenger was mistaken for a Niger Delta Avenger by military operatives. A 'May Day' workers' report has it that Bayelsa was owing 4 months salaries as at last month.
Reports have it that the situation is worse in the local governments where workers in some of the councils have lost count of the arrears owed them. Though government has assured the traumatised council workers that the N1.2billion bailout from the Federal Government for the councils was ready to offset some of the backlog of salary arrears owed them, it blamed the delay disburment on the ongoing verification to ascertain the actual staff strength of the councils.
The state wage bill is about N4billion while the allocation from the Federation Account, after all deductions, has dropped sharply with the last put at N1.6bn.
See a screenshot of the hilarious cartoon below: