By Shina Abubakar Osogbo

A coalition of civil society organisations in Osun State, The Osun Mastermind, TOM, has tasked Governor Ademola Adeleke to tell the people of the State how his administration and the firm engaged to conduct staff audit on how its squandered public fund without result.

The State Government had engaged Sally Tibbot Limited to conduct staff audit, which resulted in controversy between the government and the company with accusations and counteraccusations flying on the media.

Addressing newsmen in Osogbo on Friday, TOM’s Executive Director Professor Wasiu Oyedokun-Alli expressed disappointment over the outcome, saying the group warned the State Government over the firm’s competence to handle the job.

His words, “We were concerned about the competence of Sally Tibbot, going by her handling of the entire audit process. A competent technocrat would not have so much crisis encircling her operations within such a short period of time.

“We were concerned about Sally Tibbot’s qualification for the contract. It seemed at the time that she was ‘favoured’ to get the contract. In one of her interviews, she spoke about being able to speak to the Governor even at odd hours, and this may validate the suspicion we had at the time.

“It was clear to every onlooker that she lacked the people management competencies needed to audit a Civil Service the size of Osun State’s.

“Despite all of these, the State Government stubbornly insisted on keeping her on the contract, against all counsel, and against all obvious mishandling of the contract. We are here today, dealing with the consequences of that poor judgment”.

He also berated the State for wasting public resources over the abandonment of the Automated Payroll Administration System (APAS) which it paid N79million to procure, hence, urged the governor to come to public and explain how public fund were expensed on the exercise.

“What truly went wrong between the State Government and Sally Tibbot? We do not believe that mere contractual disagreements should result in use of verbal insults and obscenities by the State’s Chief of Staff, as contained in the call recording that Sally Tibbot played on National TV. The Osun State Government owes the public, the owners of the resources squandered on the staff audit, a clear explanation of what actually went so wrong to the point where decency got buried.

“Since the State could not use the Automated Payroll Administration System (APAS) that the government paid a whooping 79 million Naira for, who will take responsibility for such wastefulness and financial impropriety? Should government procurement also be so flippant that we pay several millions in taxpayer funds for an item that we can just simply discard?

“Why can’t the State Government make public the full Sally Tibbot report on the staff audit exercise? The State spent money on the exercise, and many Civil servants suffered serious inconveniences during the exercise. The State’s people deserve to see the details of the report, not bites and pieces that do not present a wholesome image”.