Amid increasing public scrutiny and grave allegations against the Nigerian startup Bento, which specializes in HR technology and payroll management, the company is facing accusations of engaging in fraudulent activities, including the forgery of tax receipts and the failure to remit millions in taxes and pension contributions. This turmoil has placed Bento in a precarious financial position, resulting in the unfortunate delay of January salaries for its employees. In a dramatic escalation of the situation, founder Ebun Okubanjo reacted to employee protests concerning the unpaid wages by abruptly terminating the entire tech team.
The fallout from these layoffs has resulted in a significant disruption to Bento’s payroll system, plunging the company into a state of crisis and leaving a group of young engineers without jobs. Okubanjo, who resigned from his position on January 30, attempted to justify the salary delays as a “strategic” decision and dismissed the protests as voluntary resignations. In a controversial move, he deactivated the work emails of the affected employees without compensating them and proposed to distribute the withheld salaries among those who were willing to remain with the company—a proposal that was met with unanimous rejection.
The tech team that has now been dismissed consisted primarily of young engineers who had been with Bento for just over a year. Their sudden exit has severely hampered the company’s operations, particularly in the area of payroll processing, which had already been struggling due to issues with payment processors that necessitated manual intervention.
In the midst of this turmoil, Bento has claimed that the halting of transactions was a deliberate action intended to facilitate the transfer of platform credentials from Okubanjo to an interim overseer. However, this assertion has been met with skepticism, as at least two investors have publicly denied having any knowledge of the company’s official position regarding the situation.
As employees express concerns about the long-term ramifications of these events on their careers, Bento’s latest crisis raises significant doubts about the company’s future viability. The series of missteps and the current state of disarray have left little room for confidence in Bento’s ability to recover from this turmoil and regain its footing in the competitive HR tech landscape.
