Bento Africa under investigation by LIRS and EFCC; CEO Okubanjo denies allegations

Bento Africa, a Nigerian technology HR startup founded in 2019, is facing allegations of failing to remit tax and pension payments on behalf of clients. The allegations, which are now being investigated by the Lagos Inland Revenue Service (LIRS) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), triggered a client exodus. High-profile clients like Moniepoint, Paystack, Kobo360, and Bamboo ditched Bento in 2024, according to multiple sources with direct knowledge of the matter. 

Two former clients who asked not to be named confirmed TechCabal that Bento is under investigation for allegedly forging tax receipts, delaying pension contributions, and other financial discrepancies. A former client also reported the company to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) raising questions about Bento’s practices and the regulatory gaps in Nigeria’s growing HR-tech sector.

Fuelmetrics, a digital inventory management company for petrol stations that used Bento, claims it incurred ₦50 million ($108,000) in unpaid taxes and pension contributions between 2023 and 2024. “[LIRS] 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,” read an internal memo seen by TechCabal.

On Friday, Akintunde Sultan, co-founder of edtech AltSchool, also publicly accused Bento of forging tax receipts and remitting ₦100 monthly after “collecting millions of naira in payments from startups.” Sultan’s allegation has added further pressure on Bento, suggesting the startup mismanaged pension and tax payments.

Bento’s CEO and co-founder, Ebun Okubanjo, acknowledged that the company had received complaints from the LIRS regarding unpaid taxes and confirmed the company is working on a plan to settle outstanding tax obligations for affected clients. 

However, Okunbanjo insists that these discrepancies affect “a very small percentage of Bento users, who happen to be very vocal in the tech ecosystem.” While he declined to disclose the number of businesses Bento serves, the company reported over 900 enterprise users in 2021.

He attributed the payment delays and discrepancies to the inherent limitations of Nigeria’s complex and outdated tax and pension systems. “A zero percent error rate is hard, maybe impossible,” Okubanjo wrote on LinkedIn. [Such discrepancies represent] “less than 1% of the taxes or pensions or remittances or salaries we have processed.”

Nigeria’s HR-tech sector is largely unregulated, leaving significant gaps in oversight and accountability. As a result, underpayments or failed remittances can be attributed to systemic inefficiencies rather than deliberate malfeasance, allowing companies to sidestep liability by blaming technical or operational challenges.

A former Bento employee,  who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation, claimed CEO Okubanjo intentionally delayed pension and tax payments despite client funds being available. Internal documents reviewed by TechCabal showed instances where payments were delayed for up to ten months.

Okunbanjo attributed payment delays to the manual nature of the process and insisted that missed payments are made immediately they’re brought to the company’s attention. Despite his rebuttals, there are significant concerns about Bento’s internal processes and its ability to manage client funds in a timely and transparent manner.

As part of plans to solve the reconciliation errors, Okubanjo claimed Bento and other HR tech players unsuccessfully lobbied for a direct API integration with Nigeria’s tax and pension systems.

Despite Bento and Okubanjo’s stringent denials, industry experts and former clients remain skeptical. “It is uncommon to hear of payment glitches that last a calendar year,” said  a HR-SaaS expert, who asked to not be named so they could speak freely. 

Okubanjo’s past fuels some of the scepticism. In 2023, he was accused of creating a toxic workplace and briefly  stepped aside as CEO. In a 2020 viral video, he berated a customer who complained of poor services at his gym. 

The payment delays and ensuing legal issues have cost Bento some business, with prominent clients like Paystack and Helium Health ditching the company in 2024.

Okunbanjo downplayed these departures, suggesting Bento’s strategic shift towards traditional businesses is a deliberate move to reduce reliance on venture-backed startups, which are vulnerable to funding downturns. 

He also claimed that small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are better clients, as they typically require fewer new features and are less expensive to retain. Despite the challenges, Okunbanjo claims Bento is profitable, processing about ₦4-5 billion ($2.6 million) in monthly salaries with around ₦24 million ($15,871) in monthly revenue.

How late payments go undetected 

Several cultural and systemic factors allow these issues to go undetected for months. The design of payroll applications makes users assume taxes and pensions are remitted digitally. But on the backend, Bento manually initiates these payments through a bank. This process can result in delays of weeks or even months. 

Because employees receive timely salary payments and corresponding bank alerts, neither they nor their employers typically notice the discrepancies in tax and pension remittances. This can persist as long as salary payments continue uninterrupted.

Additionally, employees often show little interest in actively monitoring their pensions, assuming the funds would be eroded by inflation. A lax tax culture and distrust in government institutions also contributed to a lack of scrutiny in the tax remittance process.

Okubanjo claimed that only a handful of clients request regular short-term records for reconciliation. Conversely, some companies only requested audits and records when regulatory issues arose, often requiring years of data that were difficult and costly to compile.  Okubanjo described these requests as close to impossible for Bento’s lean team to fulfill, citing the extensive manual effort required to gather receipts from Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs) across different states.

This lack of long-term documentation triggered Kobo360, one of Bento’s prominent startup clients, to lodge a complaint with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).  A former HR manager at Kobo360 who asked not to be named as they were not authorised to speak on the matter, recounted discovering missing pension payment receipts only after an employee requested pension documents in September 2023. 

The former HR manager claimed Bento obstructed the EFCC investigation by refusing to provide records of the company’s pension throughout the five years it used Bento. “During the investigation, Bento claimed our two-year audit, which revealed over ₦20 million in missing funds, was inaccurate. They instead blamed a glitch for the discrepancy and refused to provide records to support their claims.”

Okubanjo, who implied the EFCC investigation had stalled, also claimed it is expensive to provide such detailed records considering its slim margings—Bento charges clients a flat fee of ₦100 per employee.  

Founded in 2018 by Ebun Okubanjo and Chidozie Okonkwo, Bento is one of the more recognisable names in the sector and operates in six other countries. The company raised $2.1 million in seed funding in 2021 and has largely stayed out of the news cycle.

Yet, the company finds itself working to save its reputation for the second time in three years in a week that has been chock-full of learning for even the most indifferent observer. For employees, the lesson is simple: don’t skip that boring townhall meeting where the company decides on what HR-tech startup to use. And for HR managers everywhere, pushing the “pay” button doesn’t guarantee that your taxes and pensions have been paid.