Lotto Provides 10,000 Jobs Next Year

The National Lottery Authority (NLA) will deploy ten thousand points of sales terminals in 2011.

This forms part of its automation and modernization programme, which will create at least 10,000 jobs for new lotto marketing companies and facilitate the participation of the remaining banker-to-banker and former private lotto operators in the lotto marketing business as defined under the lottery Act 722.

The Minister For Finance and Economic Planning, Dr. Kwabena Duffour, who announced this in the 2011 budget statement, also said to improve private sector competiveness, the Government, through its new Medium Term Development Plan will create an environment to broaden investment and encourage greater enterprise development and innovation.

According to him, a more supportive basis for transforming the economy by increasing productivity, especially in the small and medium enterprise (SME) sector, will be created and greater incentives for creating formal jobs provided.

He said the Government will work towards increasing economic opportunities for the poor, especially in underdeveloped regions.

The minister outlined some specific actions to be undertaken to improve the business environment. They include the designation of a transparent, simplified and client-friendly business application process that covers divergent and cross-cutting issues for small, medium and large scale enterprises; provision of support to develop and strengthen public-private dialogue; ensuring the continual implementation of an outreach and capacity building programme to raise awareness among potential private sector players and promoting public-private partnership through projects such as the Alstom Power Plant in the energy sector, the Takoradi and Tema Port expansion and the Accra-Kumasi toll road. Touching on food security, the minister said the National Food Buffer Stock Company (NAFCO) was established to hold food security buffer stocks and to intervene in the market to ensure competitive prices at all times.

He said about 6,949 metric tonnes of rice and 416 metric tonnes of maize were purchased and stored with the government subsidizing 60,000 metric tonnes of fertilizer at an average cost of GH16.00 per bag, as part of efforts to increase productivity under the fertilizer subsidy programme.

According to him the first phase of the rehabilitation of the Tono Irrigation dam has been completed making available 1,874 hectares of land for cultivation. Under the Block Farm Programme, he added that about 47,000 hectares of land was cultivated with maize, rice, sorghum, soya bean and vegetables. This programme, the minister noted, provided financial opportunities to over 80,000 beneficiaries.

On cocoa, Dr. Duffour said COCOBOD successfully raised an amount of US$1.5 billion in the 2010/2011 crop season from 30 international banks in a syndicated loan arrangement compared with the US$1.2 billion raised during the 2009/2010 crop year.

He said the government reviewed the producer price of cocoa upwards during the 2009/2010 crop year, which spans October 2009 and January, 2010.

The producer price has been revised upwards again in October 2010 to a high level of GH¢ 3,200.00 per tonne (ie GH¢200.00 per bag). “This new price is 75.15 percent of the net FOB price, the highest in the history of this country”, he noted.

Touching on affordable housing using local raw material, the minister said in order to bridge the huge housing deficit in the country, government was seeking to ensure that by the year 2015, at least 60 per cent of materials used in the building and construction industry will be indigenous raw materials. He said a housing policy programme on the utilization of local building materials such as clay, brick and tiles, pozzolana cement, bamboo, among others in the construction industry had already been prepared on the initiative of government.