By: Ovie Ernest
This intervention (actually the first among several to come) has arisen from the ugly trend of events, particularly the biometric attendance and the catalogue of issues it has generated, in the local government system in Bayelsa State. If there is any policy reversal needed to be done by the Dickson-led administration in Bayelsa State, to rescue itself from unsolicited political consequences, is to direct the Local Government Service Commission, the office of the Special Adviser on Accounts and Treasury, and the consultants on local government staff biometric verification to immediately suspend the biometric attendance exercise/salary forfeiture agenda the latter are pushing. It should be hurriedly done because the tide indicates that it is getting belated, as so much damage has already been done.
Maybe the Dickson-led administration is not aware that it is now in the bad books of more than 80 percent of the local government workforce through the unpopular policy, with so many unintended consequences. As we will see shortly, if the present restoration government fails to see reasons with this write up, then it will be courting a political disaster sooner than later.
The unstated rule of survival in Bayelsa politics right from the days of Alamieyeseigha the Governor-General until now, is that any administration that desires to spend eight (8) years in office should not cast the first stone against workers, either in the state Civil Service or the unified local government service. One is not here contesting the prerogative of government to carry out routine staff verification exercises to weed out fraudulently inserted names on payrolls and check other forms of frauds.
Anything outside that, like what is currently happening in the local government system, is an invitation to trouble. This is the undiluted bitter truth our beloved Dickson-led administration must be told.
Maybe the Dickson-led administration is not aware that thousands of genuine local government workers have become innocent victims of the biometric attendance, for reasons that they are on annual leave, maternity leave, study leave, on secondment in other government establishments, or are stationed outside their council headquarters at various health centres as health personnel; or as road overseers, security guards, cleaners, etc.
These workers have suffered untold hardship and they are certainly not offering kind prayers for the Dickson-led administration in Bayelsa State.
Maybe the Dickson-led administration is not aware that each of the eight big local government councils in the state is spending close to N5 million to pay the consultants managing the so-called biometric attendance software installed in one or two laptops. This is sheer wastage of scarce resources and it doesn’t speak well of a government whose gospel is prudence and efficient management of resources. The huge amount of public funds spent monthly by the councils on biometric attendance can better be channeled to productive and life-changing projects and programmes needed in the council areas. Many capital projects being undertaken by the councils have been abandoned on account of insufficiency of funds. Therefore, it stands to reason that spending badly needed project funds on staff attendance by whatsoever name it is called, is tantamount to being penny wise, pound foolish; it represents a disservice to the people of Bayelsa State.
Maybe the Dickson-led administration is not aware that its enemies are catching in on the industrial ferment brewing in the local government system. The opposition can no doubt build political capital out of it and sell it as bait to the electorate, that the Dickson-led administration is not labour-friendly, insofar as it is using the biometric stuff to undo workers who supported and voted the restoration team into power.
Maybe the Dickson-led administration is not aware too that the consultants are milking the councils, having bought over the LGSC to their side. For this reason, they have refused to train the local government staff on the biometric attendance application. At the outset, the consultants were given a mandate to run the template for only six months, train some local government staff in the councils on how to operate it within the six months, and hand over to the various councils. As one did point out earlier, the consultants are no longer interested in training the workers in the councils expected to take over from them because of the millions rolling into their accounts.
Maybe the Dickson-led administration is not aware that since the introduction of the biometric attendance into the local government system, workers’ productivity has dropped sharply. The policy has injected so much bad blood into the system– workers go in the morning to clock in and return to their homes. They wait until 3.30 pm and come again to clock out. The reason for this unwholesome attitudinal change is that the biometric attendance policy places too much emphasis on attendance and pays very little attention to the tasks/assignments carried out by the workers. Now, it seems that the local government work actually starts and ends with clocking in and clocking out, nothing more! All a local government worker in Bayelsa State needs to do to guarantee his/her salary is to clock in and clock out, and nobody attaches any importance to the work, whether it is done or left undone; whether the workplace is deserted after the crowded and noisy moments of thumb-clocking or not! But what should you expect from them– is self-preservation not the first law of nature?
Maybe the Dickson-led administration is not aware that over 2,400 local government staff salaries have been stopped by the consultants, in league with the LGSC, in utter disregard of the due process (of law) and established conventions. Most of those affected, it has been established, are genuine workers. As a matter of fact, some of them are away pursuing their studies with let from the LGSC; while some of them are either on annual leave, maternity leave, on leave of absence, or absent due to medical emergencies. There are even few cases of workers seconded to other public establishments like the LGSC, the Bayelsa State House of Assembly, and the Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees state office. The funniest part of it all is that even the NULGE President in the state is among those fished out for victimization.
Maybe the Dickson-led administration is not aware that the consultants handling the biometric attendance in the councils have taken over the work of the treasury departments. It is quite disheartening that the consultants are the people now preparing local government staff salary vouchers in Bayelsa State! Where outside Bayelsa State this nonsense is permitted in this country? This sad development is a pointer to the fact that some of the over-zealous appointees of the Dickson-led administration are determined to do just whatever it would take to ruin the credibility of the government and make it unpopular among Bayelsans.
One is raising this alarm because one is in love with the Dickson-led administration for the landmark projects it has embarked on so far. The Bayelsa political experience explicitly shows that no government ‘dabbles’ into workers’ issues anyhow and ends well. The fall of Timipre Sylva’s government is a good case in point. Alamieyeseigha’s was not an exception.
The local government workers are suffering greatly in Bayelsa State as direct fallout of the biometric attendance, occasioned by technical defects like partial clocking, rejection of thumbs, network or systemic breakdowns, protracted salary delays and unwarranted stoppages. If indeed Governor Seriake Dickson wants the local government workers in Bayelsa State to support him beyond his present term in office, it is expedient for him to direct that the biometric attendance/salary stoppages be suspended due to the obvious lapses that have become manifest in the system. Besides, the cost-benefit analysis does not favour the local government councils, but the consultants who are smiling to the bank at the end of every month.
The local government system in Bayelsa State, like any other in the country, operates with the PSRs and other statutory instruments for regulating itself. Therefore, the stoppage of salaries and the arbitrary removal of staff from the payroll of councils are a recipe for litigation.
One only hopes that the persons spearheading this agenda are conscious of the consequences of their actions, for not only themselves but their boss, Governor Henry Seriake Dickson, who hopes to come back in 2016.
*Ovie is a public relations consultant.*