Alleged Financial Impropriety, Tax Siphoning: What to know about Bento Africa saga

• Bento Africa is alleged to have forged tax receipts and failed to remit tax and pension payments on behalf of clients
• The allegations against the startup may have reportedly cost it some clients
• Bento Africa’s CEO attributed the payment delays and discrepancies to the limitations of Nigeria’s complex and outdated tax and pension systems

Nigerian technology Human Resource (HR) startup, Bento Africa, has been in the news since last weekend over alleged financial impropriety that includes failing to remit tax and pension payments on behalf of clients and allegedly forging tax receipts.

The Lagos Inland Revenue Service (LIRS) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) are said to have commenced investigations into the allegations.

Though the allegations against Bento date back to 2023, the recent dust into the startup’s activities was raised by Akintunde Sultan, co-founder of edtech, AltSchool, on Friday, January 24.

Sultan, in a post on his X page, publicly accused Bento of forging tax receipts and remitting N100 monthly after “collecting millions” in employee tax.

“If you’re a Nigerian startup using @bento_africa, please go to FIRS and confirm that they’re remitting all the PAYE they’re collecting from you.

"We’ve stopped using them but for the period we were using them, they were remitting 100 Naira & faking transaction payment to FIRS.

“Throughout 2023, they were basically collecting millions in employee and tax and remitting 100 Naira. So many companies are affected and a lot of them are tech startups.

"If you used them as far back as 2023 or maybe before and after, please physically go to your tax office and confirm if they paid the PAYE they’re collecting from you,” Sultan tweeted on Friday.

Clients reportedly ditched Bento over allegations

The allegations against Bento were said to have made clients ditch the startup founded in 2019 by Ebun Okubanjo and Chidozie Okonkwo.

Per TechCabal, high-profile clients like Moniepoint, Paystack, helium Health, Kobo360, and Bamboo ditched Bento in 2024.

Also, a digital inventory management company for petrol stations that used Bento, Fuelmetrics, told TechCabal that it incurred N50 million in unpaid taxes and pension contributions between 2023 and 2024.

An internal memo from the startup read, “[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.”

Bento founder’s rebuttal

The Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Bento Africa, 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. 

Okunbanjo insisted that the discrepancies affect “a very small percentage of Bento users, who happen to be very vocal in the tech ecosystem.”

He said the limitations of Nigeria’s complex and outdated tax and pension systems are reasons for the payment delays and discrepancies.

Okubanjo also attributed payment delays to the manual nature of the process, insisting that missed payments are made the moment they are brought to the company’s attention.

“A zero per cent error rate is hard, maybe impossible. [Such discrepancies represent] “less than 1% of the taxes or pensions or remittances or salaries we have processed,” Okubanjo wrote on LinkedIn.

Inside story of how Chi Nnadi’s crypto exchange Mara crashed with investors’ $23 million

Meanwhile, TheRadar earlier reported that at the height of the crypto boom of 2021, a new crypto exchange called Mara (CoinMara Inc.) was born.

Mara had a simple goal: be a pan-African exchange poised to “build Africa’s crypto economy.” TheRadar reported how Mara crashed with investors’ $23 million.