Governor. Diri does not approve money for Commissioners to Work

Bayelsa State is rich in oil and gas. The State has only eight Local Government Areas. Although the terrain is similar to that of Delta State, Bayelsa rakes in huge amounts of money through statutory sources. In spite of the humongous resources at the disposal of the State, development is at snail speed. Indeed, Bayelsa State ranks 4th of monies allocated to States but occupies 35th position as the second poorest State in Nigeria. Paradox isn't it?

Owing to execute corruption and over-invoicing of contract values, there is zero investment in the State. Unemployment is high and Small and Medium Scale industries are comatose because of limited power supply. Double taxation and diversion of monies collected for Internally Generated Revenue is common and most of the agencies of government such as the Due Process Unit are not working. Transparency and Accountability are despised, and public officials use public monies to buy personal property.

Whereas the wheel of government is slow, the governor's frequent travels makes people refer to him as Governor in Absentia. The Diri administration has also muzzled the Ministries by establishing a central control of monies through the award of frivolous contracts and signing MOUs, none of which has been implemented. Diri is a definition of maladministration in the Niger Delta ecosystem. He has stagnated economic activities by stifling budgetary processes and disbursement of funds to the Ministries.

1. The standard practice is for a commissioner to make his budget and defend it at the House of Assembly. The budget contains key projects to be executed in a fiscal year. Based on the availability of resources, a commissioner may pick a project and estimate the cost for onward submission to the Budget Office and the Due Process Unit. Upon submission of the project to Due Process, he/she is issued with a CERTIFICATE OF NO OBJECTION. Then he proceeds with the project.

2. Under the Douye Diri administration, after the budget defence, a Commissioner who seeks to execute a project will apply to the Governor for the release of funds. This implies that the disbursement of funds depends on the personal relationship between the Commissioner and the Governor. This renders the budgetary process a mere nonsensical ritual. The implication is that most MDAs do not have approval. Worse still, overheads for the day-to-day running of offices are never released.

3. Owing to the fact that all monies are disbursed directly by the governor, the Due Process Unit does what we call SIDON LOOK because they do not have MDAs to supervise. In Bayelsa State payment of contractors, release of funds to MDAs and even the disbursement of miscellaneous expenses is at the mercy of the Governor. He is a Maximum Financial Czar and generalissimo.

4. In signing contracts, the Contractor is taken to Governor House where all negotiations about the award and kickbacks are finalized. Then the Commissioner and his Technical Staff are invited to be mere spectators, who contributes nothing to the award process. By this fact, the Commissioners are not obligated to supervise projects. This is why any time government Diri gets back from his frequent travels, he runs to project sites and boom, he travels the next day. The stagnation we see in Bayelsa State is partly because of the selfish mode of financial operations in the State.

Most public office holders are dying in silence. They cannot speak up because of being accused of disloyalty. Commissioners have no money to embark on projects in their Ministries hence the Ministries Departments and Agencies are redundant. Until Governor Diri changes this centralized management of finances, the poverty and hunger rate will worsen in the State.

WILL GOVERNOR DIRI CHANGE?