The Lagos State Inland Revenue Service (LIRS) has reportedly begun an investigation into Bento Africa, a Nigerian human resources (HR) and payroll management company, for what is described as a scam on companies that use its payroll service.
This alleged scam was first called out in an X post by Sultan Akintunde, Co-founder of AltSchool Africa where he claimed Bento was not remitting pay-as-you-earn (PAYE) tax to the Lagos State Internal Revenue Service (LIRS).
In the post made on Friday, January 24, 2025, Sultan, also the founder of DevCareer, said, “You [Bento] have been collecting millions from us but remitting 100 Naira to LIRS.
“These guys would remit ₦100, get a receipt for that, then forge a new receipt to match the main amount they were meant to remit and submit that.”
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Bento denies allegations
However, Bento Africa CEO Ebun Okunbanjo has denied that his company did any of these things. In an email to Techpoint Africa, he said the posts made by Sultan were reckless and demanded proof of the allegations.
Meanwhile, documents seen by Techpoint Africa reveal that another company, which pleaded anonymity, had ₦43.8 million in unremitted Pay-As-You-Earn (PAYE) tax and pension.
According to the company, Bento Africa pays net salaries, pensions, and taxes. Once all these monies are made available in the Bento wallet, salaries are paid immediately, while other payments are made over two weeks and the receipts are made available in what is called a vault.
The company stated that these receipts and files weren’t readily available in 2023 after Bento Africa underwent an upgrade.
“They severally craved our indulgence on the matter when receipts were being requested. This was sorted out some months later as documents were being uploaded in bits to the vault,” the company stated.
In January 2024, the company found out that receipts were still missing when it tried to get a PENCOM certification. While they reached out to Bento Africa to get them, they didn’t immediately get a response.
When they finally got a response, the payroll company said it was working internally to see what the issues were.
The revelation
While the company gave Bento Africa the grace to figure out what the issues were, a spot check by LIRS in September 2024 showed there might have been foul play.
LIRS collected tax payment receipts, but “they came back to us the following week to say that some of the receipts were fake and requested for our 2023 receipts, which we furnished them as well. It was also discovered that most of the 2023 receipts were fake.”
After this revelation, the company stopped working with Bento Africa and started making payments manually while it searched for a new payroll company.
In the documents made available to Techpoint Africa, 12 PAYE receipts between January 2023 and September 2024, (₦ 27.9 million) were invalid and 12 months of pension (₦15.8 million) between 2023 and 2024, were unremitted.
While the company has indicated that it will take legal actions against Bento Africa, it also showed that “cooperating with the LIRS, who has made us understand that there is an ongoing investigation on Bento and that we are not the only company affected in this scam dating from 2023 till date.
“We have also been made aware of the possibility of having to settle all outstanding owed to the LIRS while we seek recovery from Bento.”
In the meantime Okubanjo, while admitting that Bento Africa has had it issues, insists the company has done nothing wrong and has also indicated intentions to sue AltSchool in the US as both companies are registered in there.
Source: Techpoint Africa
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