Effect amendment to National Lotto Act — Pleads GLOA

THE Ghana Lotto Operators Association (GLOA) has appealed to the Mills government to live up to its campaign promise and effect the needed amendment to the National Lotto Act 722 (2006) to prevent the loss of jobs for more than 500,000 operators.
“This action by the government will free the growing mass of unemployed people across the country who depend on private lotto from excruciating hopelessness, under-development and slow death,” it added.
Speaking on the recent Supreme Court decision banning GLOA from operating lotto in Ghana, Mr Seth Asante Amoani, the Secretary of the association, said at a press conference in Accra on Tuesday that the creation of a monopoly in a democratic dispensation must be condemned, as it was an anathema to the progress of majority of people who depended on lotto for a living.
He described as heart-warming and patriotic when, during the 2008 elections campaign, then candidate Mills indicated that ‘the NDC government will ensure private participation in national lottery, following the passage of the National Lotto Act 722 (2006) which proscribes private sector participation in lotto’.
He alleged that the association was troubled by the recent subtle and deliberate attempts by some directors of the National Lotto Authority to permanently crush the operations of GLOA.
“GLOA views the efforts by a few selfish men at the National Lotto Authority (NLA) to prevent private sector participation in lottery as unfortunate and unpatriotic, at a time when the government is expected by the World Bank and the IMF to reduce employment in the public sector,” he added.
He said the misleading argument put forward by the NLA, posited on monopoly and revenue generation, was flawed and against the very objective of the NDC government to create the right framework for maximising national revenue with employment generation in the private sector.
Mr Amoani gave the assurance that GLOA was desirous to partner the Mills administration to promote the agenda of getting the private sector to partner the public sector to mobilise revenue for the state and create employment for Ghana’s development.
He also commended government‘s efforts after the Supreme Court decision, especially convening a meeting with GLOA and the NLA to find a middle-way solution to the current economic difficulties and unemployment created across the country by Act 722.
He added that the association was grateful to the government for offering a lifeline through the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning to build consensus in finding a better way of ensuring the participation of the private sector in lotto in Ghana.
According to Mr Amoani, the creation of the NLA was originally proposed by GLOA to serve as the regulator and not an operator of lotto in Ghana.
He said GLOA massively encouraged many Ghanaians to vote for the NDC during the 2008 elections and “it is only proper for the NDC government to restore the livelihoods of its supporters by allowing GLOA to function in the lotto industry in Ghana. One good turn deserves another”.
“We wish to state that if 500,000 people in the private lotto business voted for the NDC and changed the electoral fortunes of the NPP, then the NDC must learn from this and not make the mistake the NPP made, especially when majority of the private sector lotto operators supported the NDC,” Amoani added.
A consultant to the GLOA, Mr Ato Conduah, said the Mills administration had indicated that it was ready to assist in ensuring that the situation was reversed but added that the operators must also be transparent in their dealings.
He said it would be unacceptable for the government to allow private operators to operate their business only to realise that they had refused to pay their taxes, adding that the profit margins on the lotto business were high and that they must pay their taxes for the government to develop the country.