The Osun State Government has dismissed allegations of a N13 billion payroll scam levelled against it by auditing firm Sally Tibbot Limited, accusing the company of falsely branding thousands of legitimate workers as ghost employees in a bid to secure a N2 billion commission.
In a statement signed by the Commissioner for Information and Public Enlightenment, Kolapo Alimi, the government said a verification exercise showed that more than two thirds of the 15000 workers and retirees declared as ghost staff were bona fide employees with proper identification and documentation.
The Chief Executive Officer of Sally Tibbot Limited, Sa’adat Bakrin-Ottun, had alleged during a programme on Channels Television that the administration of Governor Ademola Adeleke refused to implement the outcome of a staff verification exercise that reportedly uncovered widespread payroll fraud.
Responding to the claims, Alimi stated that the consultant was hired to clean up the payroll system inherited from the previous administration but instead misclassified many active civil servants as ghost workers. He added that a review committee found that out of 8448 workers labelled unseen, 8015 were confirmed active, while only 433 were unreachable. Similarly, of 6713 retirees listed as ghost pensioners, 5830 were verified and 883 could not be reached.
The commissioner further alleged that the firm inflated the number of ghost workers to justify a N2 billion commission, but that figure dropped significantly after verification, reducing the consultant’s payment to about N47 million.
The government welcomed potential investigations by anti corruption agencies and insisted it has nothing to hide. It also defended the involvement of the governor’s brother, Deji Adeleke, stating he intervened only to ensure genuine workers were not unjustly dismissed.
Osun authorities say a homegrown payroll reform has now been implemented while remaining open to further scrutiny.
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