Probe Operations of NLA

 
THE Leadership of the National Lotto Receivers Union (NLRU) has called on the government to institute forensic inquest into the operations of the National Lottery Authority  (NLA) as a matter of urgency.

The NLRU also called on the NLA management to do an introspection of its activities instead of playing to the gallery to cover up their incompetence.

This will reveal the cause of the authority’s unimpressive performance in 2011.
Their call followed the admission by the NLA officials that the authority had an annual revenue loss of GH¢100 million.

The NLA in a Daily Graphic publication of January 26, 2012 blamed the situation on illegal operators, whom they described as diverting the authority’s much-needed revenue through illegal means but the Chairman of the NLRU, Mr Daniel Mensah, has taken exception to the publication and said the NLA ought  to do an introspection of its operational challenges before going public with such a distressing business agendum.

According to him, the authority’s admission that its annual overhaul revenue had dipped from GH¢135 million in 2010 to GH¢10.5 million in 2011 was a clear indication of management’s incompetence.

“In the opinion of the NLRU, the revenue decline in this otherwise profitable venture was as a result of the arbitrary and abusive unilateral downward cut of the commission payable to lotto receivers, which had seen most of them out of business due to the loss of trading capital”, Mr Mensah said.

He indicated that a large segment of those still in operation were reeling under a suffocating debt burden, which had drastically reduced their operational capacity.

“Their inefficiency has reached its peak and it now takes 60 clear days for winners of lottery tickets to have their claims paid to them, ” he said.

The situation, he said, had reached an alarming peak, to the extent that winners had demonstrated their anger and frustration at the NLA offices on a number of occasions.

He said assertions by the NLA’s Chief Operating Officer, Mr George Addo-Yobo,  that the authority had invested heavily in 2011 by procuring 10, 0000 pieces of sales points terminals, which impacted negatively on its returns, were mere public relations gimmicks meant to misinform the general public.

“The said PADPM terminals were imported in 2010 and their accompanying software has consistently had network problems, resulting in perennial traffic jams, coupled with its unrepairable nature”, he said.

That, he indicated, was a significant cause of the downward trend of the authority’s revenue since some of the terminals were allocated to some front men, who kept them like “decorative” gadgets in their homes.




SOURCE: Della Russel Ocloo, Daily Graphic, Mon Feb 6, 2012