Ghana Lotto Operators Association(GLOA) and its allies including Concerned Lotto Agents and Writers Association have vowed to vote against the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Akufo-Addo led government come 2020 general elections if they are not licenced to transact their business.
The association which has million of members across the country also challenged the government to halt its intentions to collapse private lotto business in the country.
According to them, the move by the government to collapse the private lotto operators business through the National Lottery Authority (NLA) would increase the already rate of unemployment and worsen the economic hardship in the country.
In an interview with this news portal thenewindependentonline.com at Accra,the Spokesperson and Lawyer for the Associations, Ato Konduah indicated that, the intended use of the security agents to harass private lotto operators does not give any benefit to the government but rather perpetrate the new Chinese platform rental fee fraud against the state under the watch of management at NLA.
Expressing the fear that, if government continues to collapse their business, it should expect over two million votes loss from the private lotto fraternity and their families.
Mr. Konduah revealed that the electoral defeat of the NPP in 2008 and 2012 was as the resukt of continuous harassment of private lotto operators in the country.
Therefore used the ocassion to caution government to stop the intended harassment of the private sector operators to prevent fear and panic that will be occasioned before the 2020 general elections.
The lawyer cum spokeperson added that the government must be duly advised on the insecurity, anger, resistance and public refusal to vote for the NPP come 2020.
He pointed out that in the absence of job creation by government, it should rather encourage private sector participation in lotto for employment generation at the districts to fulfil its long-held mantra of private sector development.
Mr. Konduah also accused the Director General of the NLA, Osei Ameyaw of extortion amounting to one million Ghana Cedis.
According to him, Mr. Osei Ameyaw is extorting monies from the private sector operators running into several millions of Ghana Cedis to provide them with the licence to operate banker-to-banker lotto using the NLA draw numbers.
He further accused the NLA of unlawfully confiscating draw machines, equipment and operating systems of private sector lotto operators after deceiving them into demonstrating their self-acquired systems platforms to the NLA.
He therefore called for the interdiction of the Director General of the NLA, Mr. Osei Ameyaw and full refund of millions of monies collected from operators to licence them to operate by drawing on NLA numbers and for getting them to register according to regions for a non-existent lotto operation.
Mr. Konduah reiterated that lotto operators have taken years to invest in their businesses to develop their own supply chain and can therefore not pay millions of Cedis in addition to five million Ghana Cedis bank insurance guarantees to retail lotto coupon for NLA.
He was hopeful that the government will advice itself and institute the right mechanisms to resolve all issues raised within the shortest possible time to avoid the repetition of 2008 and 2012 elections.
Source: Jamila
