Director General of the National Lottery Authority (NLA), Sammi Awuku has warned all illegal lottery operating companies and individuals to desist from their actions and go to the nearest NLA offices for license.
He cautioned that the Ghana Revenue Authority in conjunction with the NLA will from Tuesday, August 1, 2023 will conduct an exercise to swoop down on all lottery operators operating illegally and take the necessary punitive action against them.
"It is estimated that over 380 lottery operators and companies in Ghana are illegal . . . The lottery industry in Ghana is estimated at 1 billion cedis annually. As we speak, the illegal operators, on their own, operate about 400 million cedis annually.
"They pay no tax; they hide in their rooms and make profits. They don't engage in good causes. They don't pay anything to the consolidated fund. They don't pay anything to government and tax authorities. They don't pay anything to GRA," he revealed.
He advised the operators to count today their "day of redemption and your day of salvation and go to the nearest national lottery in your district or regional office".
"I have instructed my regional managers that any of them who tries to shield someone, I will make no distinction between the person doing the illegal thing and you at the regional or district office," he stressed.
Sammi Awuku also noted that the unlicensed operators are not their only target of the NLA but also staff of the Authority who are exploiting their Authority.
"We are working on it. You can have staff that deliberately through their actions the NLA can lose almost 5 million cedis a year. Some of them exploit our loopholes but day in, day out, we keep building upon these systems and closing the gap," he stated.
The NLA boss made these submissions during Peace FM's "Kokrokoo" show Monday morning.
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