Bayelsa State Government has promised to commence the payment of wage awards to all local government employees with effect from August (this month) to cushion the adverse effects of fuel subsidy removal on the workers.
The Nation reports that the state deputy governor, Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo, made this known on Tuesday, August 22, during a meeting at the Government House in Yenagoa.
The meeting included key stakeholders such as the eight caretaker committee chairmen, labour leaders, and principal officers from the local government areas.
Ewhrudjakpo, in a statement by his senior special assistant on media, Doubara Atasi, announced that the state government in collaboration with the local government councils would also ensure the payment of gratuities to council retirees who were yet to benefit.
He said that the government had approved a 30 per cent payment of the gratuities across the board for the retirees, which would also take effect from this month.
On the wage award, the deputy governor said that council workers in grade level one to six will now earn N20,000 as additional salary, grade level seven to 10, N30,000, while those in grade level 12 to 14 will now have N40,000 added to their salaries.
He added that the government had also approved N50,000 as a wage award to council employees on grade levels 15 to 17, while heads of local government will earn N100,000 as an additional salary.
Ewhrudjakpo said: While waiting for relief from the Federal Government, we are proposing a wage award for local government employees. And the proposal is that all local government workers in grade levels 1 to 6 will earn N20,000 in addition to their salary.
“Those on 7 to 10 will earn additional N30,000, grade 12 to 14 (N40,000), while grade level 15 to 17 will have N50,000 as additional salary. The Heads of Local Government will earn an additional N100000.
“The Governor, Douye Diri, has given anticipatory approval but I believe he will give the final approval this week and will start implementing from this month of August.
“That is why I have always encouraged local government workers to be patient with us. We are very aware of your suffering and the state government will not hesitate to intervene.
“On gratuities, we have also made some proposals, which we want the local governments to support us. The proposal is that we should pay 30% across the board to all those who have retired from wherever the payment stopped in 2022 and one month in 2023.
“Our plan is for every local government retiree to get something at the end of this month (August). The Governor has already approved this. We are only going to raise a committee to supervise the payment because we still have some grey areas to address.”
Ewhrudjakpo, who commended local government workers and retirees for their understanding and patience, assured them that the Diri administration would continue to take steps to address issues concerning their welfare.
On the ongoing data capturing exercise for the computerization of staff on the Oracle Payroll System, he appealed to the workers’ union at the local government level to be a little bit patient with the government to test run the software and make necessary corrections before its full take-off.
