Osun Govt Replies Sally Tibbot Payroll Verification Allegations

Payroll Verification

The Osun State Government has debunked allegations of alleged cover up of ghost workers’ indictment within the state public service by Sally Tibbot Limited.

It has also described the press briefing by the company as a subtle blackmail to force a fraudulent staff audit report on the state.

The current administration in the state made known its stand on the matter while responding to the statement from the company.

In a statement on the state government’s website, it said the unusual high numbers of alleged ghost workers by the consultant led to a re-verification exercise.

It added the re-verification led to a shocking find: extensive inflation of the supposed number of ghost workers and which showed that those the company claimed were ghost workers showed up that they were legitimate employees of the state government.

“The State Government further proposed to furnish the company with proof of the existence of each of these workers, if the same is required.

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“However, the company did not at any point in time request for such proof nor send an acceptance letter for payment based on about 1,316 workers who were not seen”, the government stated in a press statement by Commissioner for Information and Public Enlightenment, Oluomo Kolapo Alimi.

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“The state Government further submitted that while it was eager to clean up the state payroll, it can not in good conscience remove legitimate state government employees from the payroll and cannot submit to an audit report that has the potential to further defraud the state government.

Submitting that it is within its right to review an audit report before implementation, the government noted that the existence of open gaps, verifiable lapses, several battles during the audit process and high number of ghost workers compelled the setting up of a verification committee as a prelude to the implementation of the staff audit report.

“Sally Tibbot Consulting (Nig.) Ltd had declared 8,448 workers as unseen workers while 6,713 retirees were declared as ghost retirees.

“But the conclusion was arrived at by the company without making any efforts to call each of these workers to ascertain the reason for their absence.

“Upon the receipt of the report of the exercise carried out by Sally Tibbot Consulting (Nig.) Ltd, in order to avoid a situation where an honest worker would be declared a ghost worker only by reason of such worker’s absence from verification, especially if the reason for such absence is ill-health the Osun state Government carried out an in-depth analysis of the report and the following was discovered:

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“Out of the total number of 8,448 workers declared by Sally Tibbot Consulting (Nig.) Ltd as unseen workers, the Osun State Government was able to confirm 8,015 as active workers while 433 workers were found to be unreachable.

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“Also, out of the total number of 6,713 retirees declared as ghost workers by Sally Tibbot Consulting (Nig.) Ltd as unseen workers, the Osun State Government was able to confirm the existence of 5,830 retirees while 883 could not be reached.

“The implication of this is that the percentage claim payable to Sally Tibbot Consulting (Nig.) Ltd reduced drastically by virtue of the fact that the said Sally Tibbot Consulting (Nig.) Ltd attempted to reap where she did not sow by inflating the number of ghost workers/retirees to 15,161 when in actual fact, the unseen workers/retirees are about 1,316.

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Among other observations, the statement added:

“It should be emphasised that the state government stands by the recommendations of its re- verification committee which stated as follows:

-That the total emolument (gains) to the (Government from the unseen personnel is Twenty-seven Million, Seventy seven Thousand, Eight Hundred and Forty-Seven Naira, Sixty Kobo (N27,077,847.60) only as opposed to One Billion, Three Hundred and Fifteen Million, Three Hundred and Seventeen Thousand, Six Hundred and Sixty-four Naira, Three Kobo (NI318,3 17,664.03) given by the Consulting finn.

-That the main Committee was of the conviction that enough time and action have been taken on the re-verification exercise, based on this, it recommends as follows:

-That the salaries and pensions as well as palliatives of the unseen staff (active and retirees) be permanently stopped with effect from July, 2025;

-That the Consultant be paid the sum of Forty-eight Million, Seven Hundred and Forty Thousand, One Hundred and Twenty-five Naira, Sixty-eight Kobo (N48,740,125.68) representing 159% of the annual gross salaries and allowances the re-verification enabled the Government to save in one year in line with Section 3(3.1) of the MoU between the State Government and the Consulting firm on the exercise”.