The National Association of Lotto Marketing Companies (LMCs) has asked its regional branches not to engage in acts that will thwart efforts by the Authority to regularize the activities of illegal lotto operators, popularly known as banker-to-banker.
The Association made the call on Monday in Accra in reaction to a press statement issued by a group that claims to be affiliated to the Ashanti Regional branch of the Association.
It would be recalled that the group, in the said statement issued on August 31, this year, asked the NLA to discontinue the regularization process, stating that the Authority was paying attention to the banker-to-banker operators to the neglect of LMCs.
NLA’s engagements with banker-to-banker operators formed part of efforts to sanitize the industry to ensure a level-playing field for all stakeholders, as well as help increase the revenue for the state.
The process has been particularly fruitful in the Greater Accra Region, where according to the Director-General of NLA, Kofi Osei Ameyaw, over 700 unlicensed operators have willingly agreed to register with the Authority to get licence.
The development reportedly angered some members of LMCs, who organized a press conference in Kumasi to express their dissatisfaction with the management’s new policy.
However, the National Executives of the Association of LMCs, told journalists at a press conference in Accra that the call by their counterparts in Kumasi was unfounded, saying efforts being made by NLA would inure to the benefit of all stakeholders in the sector.
“As executives of the National Association of Lotto Marketing Companies, we totally disassociate ourselves with the press statement issued by a group of disgruntled individuals who purport to be members of the National Association of Lotto Marketing Companies & Retailers, a group, which is not known to the National Association of Lotto Marketing Companies which is duly registered,” Kofi Frimpong, General Secretary of the Association, who addressed the media, stated.
He said assertions by the group were “baseless, unfounded and above all unwarranted.”
According to him, some prudent steps have been taken by the current management of NLA, which saved the Authority close to GH¢396,000 over a period of six months, and that such measures were going to save the Authority about GH¢792,000 per annum.
Mr. Frimpong also described the early payment of commissions by the Osei Ameyaw-led Authority as unprecedented.
“It is rather unfortunate that certain individuals or group of individuals, who are bent on pursuing their narrow parochial interests at the expense of the NLA are engaging in unorthodox methods to thwart this laudable mission of the present management, and are using just a few of our uninformed members to scurrilously and outrageously destroy the good intentions of the present administration of the NLA, which is spearheaded by Hon. Kofi Osei-Ameyaw.”
The LMCs continued: “It is in this regard that we fully endorse the decision of the Director-General and management team to license banker-to-banker operators, and indeed all private lotto operators who are operating outside the legal framework of Act 722. The private lotto operators would be licensed to operate within the legal framework of Act 722.”
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