Lotto marketing companies want NLA director sacked

The Lotto Marketing Companies and Retailers Association (LMCs) has called for the immediate removal from office of Mr Osei Kofi Ameyaw, Director General of the National Lottery Authority (NLA), for incompetence.

The LMCS blamed the DG for instituting what they termed "bad" policies imposed on uninformed board of directors of the NLA and that the DG was supporting illegal activities of illegal lotto operations in the country.

Nana Kofi Asabre, the Northern Regional Vice Chairman of the Lotto Marketing Companies and Retailers Association made the call in Tamale during a media briefing.

The leadership of the LMCs from the Ashanti, Northern and the Upper West Regions organised the joint press briefing in Tamale where they levelled a lot of allegations against Mr Ameyaw and demanded his immediate removal from office to bring sanity into lotto operations.

Nana Asabre urged government to institute reforms to the governing body of the National Lottery Authority (NLA) to improve the situation.

He said government must institute reforms at the governing body of NLA pertaining to the National Lotto Act, Act 2006 (Act 772) to address challenges to ensure government realize the full potential of the institution to generate more revenue for development.

He said, “Act 2006 (Act 772) gives NLA the sole mandate to print coupons for retailers to sell to the market as well as minimizing possible money laundry/tax frauds activities”.

He said “Former President Jerry John Rawlings’ administration in order to support revenue generation at the District Assemblies, attempted to liberalize the lotto market by allowing the assemblies to locally license and supervise the work of private lotto sellers/operators”.

Nana Asabre, however said, many of them could not effectively compete in the market and thereby established their own unique identity and turned to pirating on numbers which was referred to as Banker-to-Banker (B2B).

“Therefore the decision by the governing body to grant licenses to B2B operators and writers serve as a breach of Act 722 and would erode progress made by previous governments and the administration of the authority”, he added.

“We acknowledge that section seven of Act 722 gives the board of directors the sole mandate to license all lotto marketing companies/individuals to retail lotto in the country; however this mandate is not without restriction on the operations of the license companies/individuals”, he said.

“We are worried about the quality and frequent shortage of paper roll supply. The unexpected reductions in supply affects our business”, he stressed.

Nana Asabre appealed for the re-introduction of surprised draws, a mechanism instituted by previous administrations to fight B2B operators as well as instituting lotto win liquidation centres to ensure an efficient way of competing with illegal operators to boost the lotto industrial sector.

He claimed that Mr Ameyaw's continuous stay in office will collapse NLA and that the undue delays in payment of big wins during his term were uncalled for.

Mr George Addo-Yobo, Director of Sales at NLA in an interview with the GNA denied all the allegations and said that all decisions taken were in the best interest of the NLA and the country.