Lotto Agents, NLA Boss On Collision Course

The Concerned Lotto Agents Association of Ghana (CLAAG) has descended heavily on the Director-General of the National Lottery Authority (NLA), Osei Ameyaw, for allegedly collecting huge sums of monies from Private Lotto Operators (PLO), yet failing on his promise to allow them operate on numbers drawn by NLA.

These monies, according to CLAAG, were collected to register the lotto operators, their agents and writers as banker-to-banker operators, that is lotto operators who use numbers drawn by NLA to do their business with certain conditions that lotto operators open up their premises for inspection and issuance of 5 million insurance guarantee which have been done awaiting for NLA to issue them with their licenses.

Monitoring various interviews between the Director and Public Relations Officer of the NLA and some press houses, CLAAG indicated, they do not know the whereabouts of the money and therefore called on the President to cause an investigation to be conducted into the matter.

The Executive Secretary of CLAAG, Kwaku Duah-Tawiah in a press statement said, the private lotto offers more than one million jobs to the unskilled labor force in Ghana and any Government who toys with the fate of lotto operators does so at its own risk.

Osei Ameyaw , CLAAG said makes claim of phasing out all old lotto kiosks and replacing them with imported E-kiosks, which he has imported 150 with each kiosk costing not less than five thousand United States dollars which is very unacceptable.

CLAAG questioned why imported kiosks is needed for lotto at this stage of the economy at that cost and how many of the such kiosk would be needed to serve the purpose because the NLA, Lotto Marketing Companies (LMC’s) have about 10,000 machines and the private lotto writer’s numbering about a million and 150 kiosks is just a drop in the ocean.

CLAAG accused Osei Ameyaw of destroying NLA and the private business of Ghanaians and cautioned him to desist or be shown the exit and hence the call on the President to investigate the matter since Osei Ameyaw is only interested in his personal aggrandizement and not the interest of Ghanaians.

They also warned Osei Ameyaw to stop harassing them by constantly sending them to the CID and also doing everything possible to stop them from working.

CLAAG suggested to the Government that the PLO could be a permanent source of income to support Government Free SHS and called for a lotto fund to be created as part of the consolidated fund for that purpose.

They (CLAAG) also called for the amendment of the current existing law such that NLA will only be a regulator of the Lotto business and not run lotto to be competitor as it’s currently doing.

Their demands if not addressed will take them to the streets, they added.