The Osun State Government has denied claims that a recent staff audit uncovered more than 8,400 ghost workers on its payroll, accusing the consulting firm contracted for the exercise of inflating figures for financial gain.

 

 

 

The firm, Sally Tibbot Limited, conducted the audit between June and December 2023. Its Executive Vice Chairman, Sa’adat Bakrin-Ottun, had told journalists that the state was paying ₦13.7 billion annually to 8,452 alleged ghost workers, describing the findings as evidence of widespread payroll fraud within the civil service. She said 125 personnel were deployed for the review and that the firm spent over ₦600 million executing the contract.

 

 

 

 

But in a statement issued through the Commissioner for Information and Public Enlightenment, Kolapo Alimi, the government rejected the claims, describing them as “a subtle blackmail to force a fraudulent staff audit report on the state.” According to him, those labelled ghost workers were in fact legitimate employees. “The State Government further proposed to furnish the company with proof of the existence of each of these workers, if the same is required,” he said, adding that the firm never requested such proof nor issued an acceptance letter based on the 1,316 workers who were initially flagged as unverified.

 

 

 

Alimi said the situation became more suspicious because the consultant’s fees were tied to how much it was able to “save” the state by removing personnel from the payroll, alleging that the firm was motivated by greed. He accused the company of “high handedness” and “deliberate maltreatment of workers” during the exercise.

 

 

 

He stated that Sally Tibbot Consulting had classified 8,448 workers and 6,713 retirees as ghost personnel without making any effort to contact them to determine reasons for absence. However, the government’s own verification showed that 8,015 of the workers were active and only 433 were unreachable. Among retirees, 5,830 were confirmed while 883 could not be reached. “The implication of this is that the percentage claim payable to Sally Tibbot Consulting reduced drastically,” Alimi said, alleging that the company attempted to claim payment on 15,161 ghost personnel when the actual number was about 1,316.

 

The commissioner said the firm later wrote insisting that payment should be based on all 15,161 personnel, arguing that the contract did not envisage a re-verification exercise by the government.

 

 

 

Following its review, the government’s verification committee concluded that the annual savings attributable to the audit were ₦27,077,847.60, far below the ₦1.31 billion estimated by the consulting firm. It recommended halting salaries and pensions of the 1,316 unverified personnel and paying the consultant ₦48,740,125.68, representing the agreed percentage of verified savings.

 

 

 

The government said it would not endorse an audit that would “further defraud the state,” adding that while it was committed to cleaning up the payroll, it “cannot in good conscience remove legitimate state government employees.”