The Lotto Marketing Companies (LMCs) are calling on the government to revoke the licenses of private lotto company, KGL Group.
According to the LMC’s, the activities of KGL are collapsing the lotto industry, hence, the call for a revocation of its license.
The KGL Group, comprises KGL Technology Limited, a licensed Online Lotto Marketing Company responsible for the operation of *959#, and a sister company, KEED-NLA which is responsible for the operation of *987#, known as Lucky 3.
Addressing a press conference in Accra yesterday, an Executive Member of Interim LMCs, Mr Kwaku Antwi-Boaou, said people want Ghanaians to believe it is ‘Banker-to-Banker’ that is collapsing the lottery business, but that is not so.
He said that the shady deal that the National Lottery Authority (NLA) signed with the KGL is what is collapsing the industry.
“We are aware of the menace of Banker-to-Banker, but that’s not what is collapsing our businesses, it’s the KGL that’s collapsing our business.”
Mr Antwi-Boanu explained that since the emergence of KGL, the NLA has gone down to the extent that it is not able to pay its agents the commission it used to pay them.
“Since the emergence of KGL, their sales have seen a downward trend. NLA is gone down to the extent that, first, we were getting our commissions between the first and second week of the month, but now they wait till 23rd-24th before they pay us. This is because there is no money there.”
He said the little money the LMCs send is what they used to take care of their expenses. He dared anyone who disagrees with their assertion about the collapse of the NLA to conduct an audit and verify how much indebted the company is.
He said it used to make profit and, hence, was able to pay dividends into the Consolidated Fund, but now the company owed and is not able to contribute to the Fund.
Though the National Lottery Authority (NLA) has indicated, in a release some weeks ago, that there was no such contract between them and the KGL Group as was being put out by the lotto operators, the LMCs still insist the contract exists and was affecting their business.
It would be recalled that the NLA, responding to similar accusations by the Ghana Lotto Operators Association (GLOA), indicated that it had not given KGL Technology an unfair advantage.
In that statement, the NLA accused the Ghana Lotto Operators Association members of “just behaving ignorantly.”
“There are no hidden intentions, and absolutely no “take-over” schemes to surrender NLA to KGL Technology Limited.”
“It is instructive to place on record that NLA is not creating any form of monopoly for KGL Technology Limited. We, therefore, want to urge the media and the general public to totally disregard the frivolous allegations by GLOA,” the statement said.
But, yesterday, the LMCs insisted that the KGL contract must be revoked, and that “if anyone wants to get involved in the lottery business, they should go to NLA and go through the right process. If everybody decided to behave like KGL, where would the state get the money for development?”
He said their worry also stems from the fact that about 120,000 lotto operators and their families would be rendered unemployed should the NLA collapse, since many people have got employment through the NLA.
Mr Antwi-Boaou indicated that to show how serious the association was, it would petition the Ministry of Finance, Finance Committee of Parliament, Counsel of State, and Jubilee House.
The post Banker-to-Banker not destroying our business, KGL is -LMCs appeared first on The Chronicle Online.
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