By Owei David

The Osun State Government has debunked allegations of alleged cover up of ghost workers’ indictment within the state public service by Sally Tibbot Limited, describing the press briefing by the company as a subtle blackmail to force a fraudulent staff audit report on the state.

Responding to the statement from the company, the state government said the unusual high numbers of alleged ghost workers by the consultant led to a re- verification exercise which shockingly revealed 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. 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 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 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:

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 actual fact, the unseen workers/retirees are about 1,316.

In response to the letter of demand dated 25th June, 2025 written by Jiti Ogunye Esq., the counsel to Sally Tibbot Consulting (Nig.) Ltd, the Osun State Government, through her counsel, Ire Egert-Olusesi (Mrs.) of the firm of Musibau Adetunbi SAN & Co., responded via a letter dated 8th July, 2025 explaining in details, the need to be absolutely sure of the exact amount that was saved by Sally Tibbot Consulting (Nig.) Ltd by the verification exercise, considering the fact that payment to the said Sally Tibbot Consulting (Nig.) Ltd is based on the percentage of the amount saved.

The Osun State Government by the said letter, further proposed that payment be made on the number of the actual ghost workers ascertained, i.e. about 1,316 while more verification is carried out. Copies of the said letters dated 25th June, 2025 and 8th July, 2025 are herein attached as Annexures 1 and 2.

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.

The said Sally Tibbot Consulting (Nig.) Ltd did not avert her mind to the fact that payment, by the agreement between the parties, is to be made on the actual amount saved by the state by the verification exercise. The Osun State Government, by a letter dated 5th August, 2025 responded and drew the attention of the company to the fact that the agreement between the parties only envisaged payment to the company based on the actual savings.

The State Government, through her counsel, further referred the company to the relevant Clause of the Agreement executed between both parties.

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.