By Igoniko OdumaYenagoa — The Bayelsa State government has disclosed that it expended N862 million as salary for political appointees in the months of November and December 2014.
Deputy Governor of the state, John Jonah, a retired Rear Admiral, made the disclosure at the monthly transparency briefing for the two months, which held during the week at the Banquet Hall of Government House, Yenagoa.
At the November edition of the income and expenditure briefing, Governor Seriake Dickson had lamented the unsustainable status of an average N500 million monthly wage bill of political appointees, warning that some of them might be dropped if the dwindling financial fortunes of the state failed to improve.
The state government received a gross inflow of N13.5 billion for November and N14 billion in December from the Federation Account, Excess Crude Account, Derivation, SURE-P and other sources of revenue.
Jonah said the political appointees collected N437 million in November and N425 million in the month of December, while civil servants' salary gulped N3.9 billion in November and N4 billion in December.
Other outflows in November included bank loans, N6.09m, 18 percent minimum wage arrears, N125 million, monthly overhead, N877 million, and standing approval of N242 million.
Jonah posted a total of N2.01 billion as balance for the month, saying recurrent payments stood at N1.3 billion with N423 million as capital payments.
According to him, other expenditures for the month were bank loan repayment N7 billion, Federal Inland Revenue Service N90 million, overhead payments N909 million, recurrent payments N3.6 billion and capital payments N445 million.
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