NLA Gets Own Platform

The National Lotteries Authority (NLA) is set to operate its own lotteries platform rather than continue to outsource the job to private companies that were charging government some GHC3Million per month.

The new platform would be owned and operated by the NLA and the new arrangement would mean government would save an additional GHC3Million every month apart from the extra close to GHC15 million that is the NLA is now paying into the Consolidated Fund.

This new initiative has however not gone down well with some beneficiaries of the existing system and they have teamed up to ensure the status quo continues.

“I was given the job by President Akufo-Addo to a very good reason and I must justify my role here. Come rain or shine, my team and Board shall ensure the NLA operates its own platform because we can do it. It saves the NLA some huge sums of money, it makes manipulation very difficult and an impossibility, and it makes the tax payer happier”, Kofi Osei-Ameyaw, the Director-General has explained.

Already, Mr. Osei-Ameyaw since his appointment has taken very bold but difficult steps to seal leakages in government revenue and to make sure every money generated at the NLA goes into government coffers rather than to private coffers.

“Our team realized that the wins were outrageous and very curious. How an you operate a lottery platform and then there is a win against you and the win is up to 400 percent and this trend is regular? It means there is something curious going on. A win of 400 percent means the NLA would fall on government to dip hands into the Consolidated Funds to pay and this was not right. We should be making profit but not losses.

“We decided that as long as I, Kofi Osei-Ameyaw and my Board remain in place, there shall be no draw of the figures unless we are sure all stakes have been closed, the sales validated and audited properly and that all sales have been submitted before we operate the draw machine. When we started to do this, we realized to our shock that the 400 percent wins dropped to 32 percent and the NLA started to make some good money which we pay into the Consolidated Fund. But for some reasons, this is not making some people happy”, Osei-Ameyaw narrated.

Another laudable initiative the new Director-General has brought on board is to remove taxes from wins so as to make winners get the exact amount they win rather than pay tax.

“The Lotto Marketing Companies (LMCs) had issues with their commission. Their commission was subject to tax and when you stake and win lotto, you have to pay some tax. This was making the Banker To Banker operators more attractive to the public because when you win from Banker To Banker, you make more money.

“My team and Board have scrapped the taxes on the LMCs and on wins so the LMC operators are happier because now they can compete with the Banker to Banker operators. And when you win, you get your full amount tax free. This has increased sales and given the government more money.

“Also, we have opened the avenue for the Banker To Banker operators to come on board, Under a Public Private Partnership, Banker To Banker operators are to pay their license fees to start to operate legally”, Osei Ameyaw noted.

Meanwhile persons not happy with the achievements are bent on relying on a section of rented mercenary journalists to paint the new NLA administration black.

The idea is to throw the nasty story out in the public domain, set an agenda for it to become a topical issue, get particular anti-corruption organizations to pick it up and call on the President sack the NLA boss and to order a probe into it the allegation.

In the Month of March, 2018, credible signals are that there would be a series of ‘corruption watch seminars’, press conferences, civil society agitations and a vibrant trial-by-media against the person of Kofi Osei-Ameyaw with the single aim of getting him out of the NLA.