A Lagos-based forensic audit firm, Sally Tibbot Consulting Limited, has accused the Osun State Government of failing to implement its report exposing N13.7 billion annual payroll fraud.
The firm said it uncovered the fraud during a payroll verification and audit exercise it conducted at the behest of the government.
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It also accused the government of failing to pay its agreed fees.
The firm made the allegation on Friday at a press briefing organised by Jiti Ogunye, the legal representative of Sally Tibbot Consulting Limited
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It accused the administration of Governor Ademola Adeleke of refusing to implement its audit recommendations and failing to pay its contract fees, despite receiving and publicly acknowledging the audit report.
Presenting the firm’s findings, Mr Ogunye said the Osun State payroll as of January 2023 listed 37,456 active staff members and 17,918 pensioners, with a combined monthly wage bill of N4.48 billion, based on records from the state’s payroll platform.
However, the firm said its forensic audit established that only 29,004 staff members and 17,918 pensioners were genuine, meaning that 8,452 workers were ghost employees who were receiving salaries without valid employment records.
According to the firm, the verified payroll reduced the state’s monthly wage bill to N3.34 billion, resulting in monthly savings of N1.14 billion and annual savings of N13.72 billion for the Osun State Government.
The firm said it submitted its final audit report and invoice to Governor Adeleke on 27 June 2024, and later publicly presented the report at a government-organised event in Osogbo on 10 July 2024.
The company said the failure to implement the report has allowed the continued payment of salaries to thousands of ghost workers, leading to significant losses of public funds in Osun State.
The dispute
However, Sally Tibbot alleged that since the submission of the report, the Osun State Government has failed to implement its recommendations or pay its contractual fees, despite repeated formal and informal demands.
“Sally Tibbot through her Executive Vice Chairman and CEO has taken many steps ( including telephone communications, WhatsApp messages, meetings, informal demand notes, emissaries interventions, familial routes, plea to government functionaries, political channels, and formal, official correspondences) to demand for the implementation of the Audit Report; and for payment for job undertaken and concluded under the Contract Agreement, to no avail.
“Although the Governor of Osun State did set up an action committee, chaired by the Chief of Staff to the Governor, Hon. Kazeem Akinleye to review and put down measures for the implementation of the recommendations of the Report, the Committee did nothing about the implementation,” the firm said.
The firm also rejected claims by the Osun State Government that a post-audit re-verification exercise showed that most of the workers declared as ghost employees were actually active staff or retirees. It described the government’s explanation as false, contractually baseless, and an afterthought designed to discredit the audit findings.
“The claim by the Osun State Government that out of the total number of 8,448 workers declared by Sally Tibbot as unseen workers during the audit exercise, Osun State Government was able, after the submission of the Audit Report, to confirm 8015 as active workers while 433 workers were found to be unreachable.
“And that out of the total number of 6,713 retirees declared as ghost workers by Sally Tibbot, Osun State Government were able to confirm the existence of 5,830 retirees while 883 could not be reached; and that thus, the total number of workers whom Sally Tibbot was not able during the audit exercise to ascertain their existence is 1,316 against the 15,161-worker(s) declared as ghost workers by Sally Tibbot, is blatantly false,” it added.
According to Sally Tibbot, the audit contract did not provide for any re-verification after submission of the final forensic report, and the state government lacked the capacity to independently conduct a credible forensic audit, which was why the firm was initially engaged.
The company further alleged that its management faced security threats during and after the audit exercise, which it attributed to vested interests affected by the exposure of entrenched payroll fraud in the state.
The demands
At the press briefing, Mr Obgunye, speaking for Sally Tibbot. demanded the immediate implementation of the recommendations contained in its audit report and the payment of its outstanding contract fees, in line with the terms of its agreement with the Osun State Government.
The firm also called on the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) to conduct independent investigations into the alleged payroll fraud in Osun State.
It urged the anti-graft agencies to probe what it described as a coordinated effort to suppress the audit findings and allow the continued diversion of public funds through the payment of ghost workers.
Sally Tibbot said it would not retract its findings or succumb to intimidation, insisting that the audit was conducted professionally, transparently, and in line with global best practices.
The firm added that beyond its contractual claims, the matter raised broader concerns about accountability and public finance management in Osun State, noting that continued non-implementation of the audit report would amount to an abuse of public trust.
“Sally Tibbot has evidence of these threats, verbal and by other means. But Sally Tibbot will not yield to the threats. It will not bow to intimidation. It deserves and demands justice. And the people of Osun State deserve justice on the utilization of their funds held in trust by the Government of Osun State,” the lawyer added.
How audit was carried out
According to Sally Tibbot Consulting Limited, the company was formally engaged by the Osun State Government in April 2023 following a proposal it submitted in January of the same year.
The engagement was to conduct a comprehensive verification, validation, and re-engineering of the state’s payroll system covering civil servants, local government employees, education sector workers, tertiary institutions, and pensioners.
According to the firm, a formal contract agreement was executed on 22 May 2023, mandating it to carry out physical staff verification, biometric data capture, payroll validation, and the development of an Automated Payroll Administration System (APAS) for the state.
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The firm said it deployed 125 staff members, including core personnel and ad-hoc workers, and carried out statewide physical verification over a six-month fieldwork period, followed by data mining, validation, and system development. It said the entire exercise lasted twelve months and cost the company over N600 million.
PREMIUM TIMES contacted Olawale Rasheed, spokesperson to Governor Adeleke, who promised to get back to our correspondent.
“We will get back. The committee is working on a response,” Mr Rasheed said.
However, as of press time, Premium Times had yet to receive a further response from Mr Rasheed.
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