By
Felix Engsalige Nyaaba
The National Lotto
Authority (NLA), has sent a warning to the general public, especially cooperate
bodies and institutions that engaged in illegal lottery in the name of
promotion to stop or risk been sued.
The NLA said so many
telecom and financial institutions in recent times have left their core
function as business entity and engaged in illegal form of lottery under the guise
of promotion.
It warned that, the NLA
law does not permit such bodies to engage in such lottery without a requisite
certificate or license from the authority.
The Director General of
the National Lotto Authority (NLA), Mr. Kojo Andah, gave the warning at a press
conference held in Accra yesterday.
According to the
Director General, many of the
Telecommunication organization and financial institution in recent time has
been out-dooring games of lotto’s, but
disguised them as marketing promotion or advertisement to get customers, which
he said was illegal.
He said, per the NLA
Act 722, section 4, no other
institution, be it state or private could engage in lotto or game of chance without license or certificate from the authority.
Mr. Andah noted that, many
organizations have also been using the
license that the Gaming Commission, has issued to them for game of chance to operate
lotto, stressing that the Gaming Commission has no legal mandate to do so.
He said, the Gaming
Commission has overstepped its boundaries for purporting to be engaging in
issuing permit for the operation of games of chance or lotto which were the
mandate of the NLA.
The alleged games of
chance permitted by the Gaming Commission, he said, “were not games of chance,
but lotteries and that by the provision of the Gaming Act 721, the Gaming
Commission do not by any stretch of interpretation have the mandate to permit
the operation of games of chance.”
He noted that, when the
authority took the Gaming Commissiio0n to the law court, the court in its
ruling quashed the Gaming Commission permit to the Fidelity Bank..
According to Mr. Andah,
the NLA has a sole mandate to operate lottery for which reason it has the
capacity to sue or seek orders from the court restraining the operation of
other forms of alleged lottery by persons prohibited from doing so.
The Director General of
NLA also explained that, the recent court ruling which outs the authority from
initiating any civil suit against organization was not to stop the legal
mandate of the Authority but rather direct it to also seek clearance from the
Attorney General before initiation such suits.
He said, the authority would
not relent its effort to flush out all illegal lotteries in the name of
promotion on the airwaves by both Telecom and Financial Institution in order to
maximize revenue for the nation.
He stated that, the
action was not to deny those organizations the rights to game of chance, but to
sanitize the system and ensure that, the NLA Act722 was not flouted with impunity.
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