The National Lottery Authority, NLA, is cautioning all private lotto operators that it will enforce its laws which compel them to follow due process before they can engage in the business.
The gaming authority believes the move should sanitise the sector and ensure that the government generates the needed revenue from the activity of private lotto operators.
The CEO of the NLA, Kofi Osei Ameyaw in an interview with Citi Business News lamented the huge revenue losses which emanated from the regime where the activities of the private lotto operators were not properly regulated.
Since June 2018, all persons interested in undertaking the private business are expected to pay license fees of one hundred thousand cedis per operation in a region.
This translates into one million cedis when an operator wanted to operate across the entire ten regions at the time.
Though there was some amnesty to allow the operators time to comply, Mr. Ameyaw maintains the outfit will be clamping down on all non complying operators henceforth.
He spoke at the launch of the NLA’s new VAG lotto to support veterans in Ghana.
“You need to pass a certain criteria; a time of application as well as assessment after which you are issued with a license with terms and conditions which also doesn’t allow anymore paper work as everything will be done on the Point of Sale device. By this the amount of lottery which has been bought is seen by all parties i.e. the government, NLA as well as the lottery agents,” he explained.
The period where there was relatively less control of the private operators also saw the payment of a monthly contribution of five thousand cedis to the Veterans Association of Ghana.
But Minister of Defense, Dominic Nitiwul says the change in the status quo will see operators pay an amount of 120,000 cedis to VAG which is expected to aid in their welfare.
“They have started paying and that is the reason why today VAG is able to purchase buses and we are able to build sports stadia for the soldiers in Tamale. We want to make sure that at the regional levels, we are able to build centres for VAG and ultimately go down to selected rural areas to do same,” Mr. Nitiwul said.
The Veterans Association of Ghana has been complaining of the low returns when there was no regulation.
It had in times past pursued to control the operation of the private lottery business by itself until the NLA agreed to improved terms with the Association.
Meanwhile the NLA has rolled out another lottery system, the Super 6 which is expected to support revenue generation from the business venture.