Seriake Dickson, Bayelsa State governor, late on Thursday, returned to Yenagoa, the state capital, from a controversial three-week vacation abroad.
It was gathered that no sooner he arrive at Government House, Yenagoa, than he went into a marathon meeting with the officials of his cabinet which lasted far into the night.
While Dickson was away, there were reports that he had been arrested in the U.S. for alleged money laundering.
But the state government through, Jonathan Obuebite, the Commissioner for Information, vehemently denied the reports, saying there was no modicum of truth in the reports.
Meanwhile, Governor Seriake Dickson has constituted a nine-man judicial panel of inquiry into salary fraud in the state public service amid crisis of unpaid salaries of civil servants.
Justice Doris Adokeme, a High Court judge in the state, is the chairman of the panel with Mr. Victor Slaboh, a pay roll expert, as secretary.
Inaugurating the commission on Friday at the DSP Alamieyeseigha Memorial Banquet Hall, Government House, Dickson described payrolls in Bayelsa as worse than voters’ register.
He said that the payrolls have persons who are above retirement age still collecting salaries, stressing that “people no longer die in the public service”.
Dickson said that the payrolls also include children yet unborn and young person’s while in some families every member is a government worker.
He said: “The payrolls in Bayelsa are worse than voters register because whereas voters register have only eligible voters of 18 years and above, but until a man or woman passes on, even at age 90, he or she is still eligible to vote.
“But the pay rolls of Bayelsa have those who ought to have retired, at 60, at 80, you still have them drawing regular salaries,” he stated.
