The National Lottery Authority will undertake aggressive action in conjunction with the National Security Agency as part of efforts in sanitising the Lottery sector to enable the Authority to achieve its mandate.
Dr. George Eric Gyamfi-Osew, the Director of Operations, National Lottery Authority (NLA), who said this in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, at the launch of the “Wulucky” Lotto, explained that the Authority had two mandates.
The mandates were to generate revenue for societal and national development by helping to build infrastructure like schools and hospitals and the second was to generate funds for the poor and destitute in society.
“So, this means we must maximise revenue generation. But we see that illegal lottery still exists in Ghana, so we need to intensify efforts to sanitise the industry,” he said.
Dr Gyamfi-Osew said the NLA was going to create a licensing regime where those from the private sector with interest in joining the lottery business could register for license to operate genuine businesses and pay fees to contribute to revenue mobilisation.
“It’s been good so far, but some are not cooperating, we have made some arrests with the National Security Agency, and we will intensify it. We are serious, so it is either you be clean, register and be licensed or exit,” he added.
The NLA Director said by the end of 2022, the sector should be sanitised to ensure progress, adding that those without licenses would be dealt with legally.
Speaking on Wulucky, Dr Gyamfi-Osew said the NLA needed enormous amounts of money to execute its projects, hence, took steps last year to sanitise the system.
He, therefore, commended Wulucky for taking the right path to penetrate the lottery market and helping to support the needy Ghanaian through varied ways.
Nana Kofi Adjei, the Manager, Wulucky Lotto, said the initiative meant well and not to extort and operate illegally as others had done in the past.
“As a genuine company, we are here to help each other to generate funds and create opportunities for others to benefit from our games and to support national growth as well. There are many people interested in games but for varied reasons such as just for fun, others for some needy and pressing issues, among others. For all these reasons, we are there to help everyone realise a goal,” he said.
He commended the NLA for putting in place stringent measures to prevent miscreants from penetrating the lottery industry.
Mr Kaye Kweku Yeboah, Chairman of the Occasion, said the growing popularity of the lottery game, the increasing patronage, human error in writing of numbers, the selection of winners and payment of winnings, motivated Wulucky to begin the development of a home-grown mobile lotto game solutions to meet the needs of the digitized age and compete globally.
“Whether we like it or not, we are immersed in a world that is racing along with technology and we must embrace and take advantage to develop innovative products for the lotto industry and help create opportunities for jobs.
“In order for us to grow and evolve as a successful company, we need to constantly reimagine the future and create e-commence opportunities,” he added.
Wulucky is a mobile phone lotto game, licensed on December 18, 2022, that enables players to play with as little as GHS1.00 to win up to GHS1,200,000.
GNA