National Executives of the Association of Lotto Marketing Companies (LMCs) have thrown its weight behind the Director-General of National Lottery Authority (NLA), Mr. Kofi Osei-Ameyaw, to fully pursue and implement all his initiatives.

LMCs also disassociated itself from a statement issued recently by a group calling itself, the National Association of Lotto Marketing Companies and Retailers, which sort to undermine the progress being made by the new administration headed by Mr Osei-Ameyaw.

Speaking in an exclusive interview with Today on the sidelines of a press conference held in Accra last Monday to debunk allegations levelled against the NLA boss and the authority as a whole, General Secretary of LMCs, Mr. Kofi Frimpong, described members of the group as “disgruntled individuals” whose claims at the said press conference in Kumasi were “baseless, unfounded and unwarranted.”

“We condemn not only their actions in totality but the content of their purported press statement issued on 31st August, 2017 in Kumasi in the Ashanti Region,” he said.

Mr. Frimpong announced that the true members of the Association welcome the decision by the director-general and the management of NLA to regularise operations of Private Lotto Operators whose activities are done outside the legal framework of Act 722.

According to him, the operations of Private Lotto Operators, also known as “Banker-to-Banker,” have become an albatross hanging on the neck of NLA and several attempts made by past managements of NLA including police raids to eliminate them have not been successful.

“In our view, the only option worth considering now is to find a way to control activities of Banker-to-Banker operators. We need to bring them on board; we need to register and licence them to enable them pay taxes as well. Let me say unequivocally that the National Executive Committee and members of the Association fully endorse the decision by the board and management of NLA to licence Banker-to-Banker operators,” he affirmed.

The national executives also commended the new director-general for his foresight and strategic initiatives to expand the revenue base of the authority and most importantly to create jobs for the teeming unemployed youth.

According to them, for the short period that the new administration took office, NLA has made unprecedented sale of GhC205,047,991.65 and paid an amount of Ghc41,009,598.33 which represents 20% of total sales to retailers as commissions.