…How tweeter users called him out on his ‘common sense’ theory…
Senator Ben Bruce, the ‘common sense’ senator is presently been dragged on twitter over his silence over five months unpaid salaries currently rocking his State.
Reports according to Punch revealed this morning that some workers in the public and civil service in Bayelsa State have resorted to begging to survive the harsh economic realities in the State.
It was observed that some workers, in a bid to cope with the harsh economic condition foisted on them by unpaid salaries, had devised different means to beg in order to fulfil their financial obligations.
It was learnt that the civil and public servants being owed about five months’ salaries by the Governor Seriake Dickson-led administration could no longer meet their personal and family obligations.
Many of them were said to be unable to pay their bills, children’s school fees and service their accommodation expenses.
Due to their inability to pay transportation fares, most of them could no longer attend to go to their work places and church activities while persons who managed to go end up begging for fares to go back home.
Some of them said they were dying of hunger, adding that they no longer went to work because of the lack of money for transport and feeding.
They recalled that Dickson had promised to promptly pay salaries of workers, but wondered why the governor, who was no longer executing projects, could not pay workers.
One of them, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of victimisation, said he stopped going to work because the government had not paid him since November 2015.
The source, who is a manager in the government owned Izon Ibe Community Bank, confessed, “I work in the state-owned micro-finance bank, but since November, I have not been paid. I can’t go to work because I need to look for something to do to feed my family. It has been very tough. Surviving in Bayelsa State has become so difficult.
“I wonder why an oil-producing state like Bayelsa cannot pay salaries. We learnt that states like Ebonyi and Taraba, with one of the least allocations, still pay salaries. But here, we are working in an oil-producing state without salaries.”
Also, two ladies working for the state government were sighted on Imgbi Road, on Wednesday, begging passers-by for N100 to go home after attending a morning church programme in the area.
Though many people turned them down, they leapt up in joy when eventually a Good Samaritan gave the duo N500 to go home.
However, the Senator who was vocal and offered to donate his wardrobe allowance to Osun State government when similar situation rocked the State has kept mute as his people wallow in poverty and die in hunger.
Tweeter users are however not giving him a breathing space as the flood his Timeline with his ‘common sense’ theory.
