The Osun State Government has denied the discovery of 8,452 ghost workers by the consultant, Sally Tibbot Limited, hired for staff audit on January 11 2023.
The government alleged that the consultancy firm, which conducted the exercise between June and December 2023, arbitrarily inflated the number of ghost workers to get more pay for the service rendered.
The Nation recalled that the Executive Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the firm, Sa’adat Bakrin-Ottun, said the state government was paying the ghost workers a sum of N13,716,914,129.28 annually, with her discovery revealing pervasive payroll fraud within the state’s civil and public service system.
She stated that 125 personnel were deployed during the exercise, both on-site and remotely, and expending over N600m to execute the contract.
However, the Commissioner for Information and Public Enlightenment, Kolapo Alimi, described the claims by the consultant as a subtle blackmail to force a fraudulent staff audit report on the state.
He said those the company claimed were ghost workers were legitimate employees of the state government.
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The state government further proposed to furnish the company with proof of the existence of each of these workers, if the same is required. However, Alimi noted that “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 noted that the entire saga became more suspicious, especially as company’s fees was based on the amount of money she saves the State government on the payroll, indicating that the company’s claim was based on greed especially going by the consultant’s high handedness, open exclusion of staff during auditing process and deliberate maltreatment of workers that characterised the entire audit processes.
“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 a 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, 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: 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.”
“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 fact, the unseen workers/retirees are about 1,316.”
“On 23rd July, 2025, the counsel to Sally Tibbot Consulting (Nig.) Ltd wrote another letter insisting that payment should be made on 15,161 as against the about 1,316 workers, claiming that the agreement between the company and Osun State Government did not envisage a re-verification exercise by the government.
“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, Seventyseven 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 firm.”
Alimi added: “That the main Committee believed 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.”
