National Lottery Authority to waive taxes on lotto wins

Mr Kofi Osei-Ameyaw, the Director-General of the National Lottery Authority  (NLA), has assured Lotto Marketing Companies (LMCs) that taxes on lotto wins would soon be waived.

He also assured them that payments for lotto wins would in future be made at the Point of Sales (POS) with the introduction of the e-kiosk to be provided by the NLA.

“The authority has sent proposals to the Ministry of Finance for the scrapping of taxes paid by lotto agents to attract more operators in to main stream operations,” Mr Osei-Ameyaw said at a meeting with Lotto Marketing Companies.

The NLA will introduce about 30,000 modernise and innovative e-kiosk nationwide by November this year to provide value added services in the lotto business.

“The modernised sales point will allowed agents to provide services like mobile Money, received taxes on behalf of the Ghana Revenue Authority,

He said the Authority was considering an increase in the commission earned by operators from the current 20 to 25 per cent or more.

“There are also plans by the NLA to initiate and implement a welfare package for all its agents once the necessary strategies are put in place.”

The Director-General said the NLA was putting in place measures to telecast live lotto draws as was done years ago to ensure that operators were keenly involved in the draw.

The LMCs raised some concerns on the issue of petitions on payments for wins.

Mr Nii Adjiri, an Executive of the Greater-Accra Region, said the NLA should stop the illegal operators from operating Banker-to-Banker until they were fully license.

He said some illegal operators monitor the closing time of license lotto agents and draw times and took the opportunity to do illegal business within that period.

The NLA contributes about GH¢35 million annually to the consolidated funds and hopes to increase it to GH¢100 annually.