The Bayelsa State Government has said that the women that took to the streets of Amassoma, yesterday to protest their removal from the payroll of the state-owned Niger Delta University (NDU), were among the over-bloated non-academic staff weighing down the university.
According to a press statement signed by the Commissioner for Information and Orientation, Daniel Iworis-Markson, the women, who were in their late 60s and early 70s, blocked the road leading to the university, demanding their names to be returned to the payroll.
Iworiso-Markson said the women were casualties of the ongoing cleansing in the public service reforms initiated by the state Governor, Seriake Dickson, and noted that the women were removed from the university's payroll for drawing salaries despite reaching retirement age.
The Commissioner for Information and Orientation, Mr. Daniel Iworiso-Markson, also said that detractors of the government were behind the protest, adding that they decided to fund the protest instead of explaining to the mothers that the government was doing the right thing.
He said the protesters would rather thank the governor if they understood that the public service reforms were meant to secure the future and provide opportunities for their jobless children, noting that the affected women were not going to work but were drawing salaries at the end of the month.
He said to ameliorate the effects of removing the retired persons from the payroll, the government decided to pay them three-month salaries in lieu of their disengagements.
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