The All Progressives Congress, APC, in Osun State has called on the anti-corruption agencies to investigate an alleged payroll fraud involving over N13 billion under the administration of Governor Ademola Adeleke.
The party made the call in a press statement signed by Kola Olabisi, its Director of Media and Information alleging that a forensic audit of the state civil service uncovered payments to thousands of non-existent workers.
At a press conference on Friday, January 9, 2025, Jiti Ogunye, legal counsel to the Executive Vice Chairman and Chief Executive of SALLY TIBBOT Consulting Limited, Sa’adaat A. Bakrin-Ottu, said the firm’s audit identified 8,452 alleged ghost workers on the state payroll.
Ogunye disclosed that the audit found that more than N13 billion was paid annually to the purported non-existent workers, describing the findings as the outcome of a forensic review commissioned by the state government.
According to him, “the executive brief submitted to Governor Adeleke showed that the January 2023 payroll for mainstream workers and pensioners stood at N4.48 billion, based on payments made by CHAMS to 37,456 workers and 17,918 pensioners.”
He added that “following a comprehensive staff audit, payroll reengineering and validation exercise, the genuine monthly payroll was revised to N3.34 billion, with an actual workforce of 29,004 staff and 17,918 pensioners, thereby indicating an excess of 8,452 names.”
Ogunye also disclosed that “the exercise, conducted between June 2022 and April 2023, resulted in alleged monthly savings of N1.14 billion, translating to about N13.7 billion annually for the Osun State Government.”
He said the firm submitted its full report to the governor on June 27, 2024, and publicly presented the findings and recommendations at a ceremony in Osogbo on July 10, 2024.
Ogunye claimed that despite repeated demands for the implementation of the report’s recommendations and payment for the concluded assignment, the firm had yet to receive a response. He noted that the state government instead carried out a revalidation exercise to review the report.
The legal counsel also alleged that members of the consulting firm’s management had received threats following their insistence on the implementation of the audit recommendations.
Reacting, the Osun APC “urged the Nigeria Police to investigate the alleged threats. We call on statutory anti-corruption agencies to examine the claims surrounding the reported N13 billion payroll payments.”
The party, in the statement said it “expected the state government to address the allegations and clarify the status of the audit recommendations.”
Meanwhile, the Osun State Governor, Ademola Adeleke has welcomed the call by Sally Tibbot Limited, an anti-corruption agencies to review the state staff audit report, according to the statement issued on Friday.
Responding to the development, Governor Adeleke in a statement by his Spokesperson, Olawale Rasheed on Saturday said the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, ICPC, were at liberty to examine the report and the processes behind it.
Adeleke stated that any review would concern the payroll and personnel records inherited from the administration of former governor Gboyega Oyetola.
Also on Saturday, the Osun State Government through the Commissioner for Information and Public Enlightenment, Kolapo Alimi in a statement dismissed the allegations of ghost workers in the state public service levelled by Sally Tibbot Consulting (Nig.) Ltd.
The state government also described the company’s recent press briefing as an attempt to blackmail the government into accepting a disputed audit report.
Alimi said the unusually high number of alleged ghost workers presented by the consultant necessitated a re-verification exercise, which revealed significant inflation in the figures originally submitted.
