INTRODUCE INNOVATIVE MEASURES INTO LOTTO INDUSTRY (PAGE 35, MIRROR, JAN 23, 2010)

From George Ernest Asare, Kumasi.

Mr Dominic K. Asamoah, a former Ashanti Regional Chairman of the Lotto Receivers Association, has called for the introduction of innovative measures into the lotto industry to enhance its expansion and revenue generation.
This, he said, would enable the government to receive adequate support from the industry for its socio-economic development agenda to raise the standard of living among Ghanaians.
Mr Asamoah explained that “the national lotteries have lost about 70 per cent of their share of the market to the illegal ‘banker to banker’ operators who have proved to be effective and efficient”.
“Every lotto kiosk in the country painted in the colours of the national lotteries prefers to sell ‘banker to banker’ to enthusiastic stakers, and as fate would have it, the illegal operators ensure prompt payment of winning, thus making them more attractive,” he noted.
He said the national lotteries had the potential of bringing in revenue “but it is being relegated to the background as efforts are not made to institute policies and programmes that could make the lotteries more viable and bring in more revenue”.
In a statement to the media to express his frustration at the lack of innovative measures in the lotto industry, Mr Asamoah, who is about 70 years old, noted ”the Greeks and Romans used the gaming sector as a means of raising revenue to construct their glorious city-states, and in the United States of America, one State that has gained tremendously from the lotteries is Las Vegas”.
He said Ghana stood to gain from the industry “by bringing her people from abject poverty to a life of relative enjoyment and happiness if the government implements programmes that will enhance income generation”.
“The automated system introduced by the past government is laudable, but lotto administrators are not channelling resources to make it viable. For instance, only about 300 lotto receivers in the Ashanti Region are operating the automated machines with the remaining 419 still hanging on to the manual system,” he explained.
He pointed out that all attempts to get the authorities to train lotto receivers and provide them with the requisite machines to enhance their operations had also failed.
He further explained that those operating the automated machines “have to deposit as much as GH¢200.00 to acquire them, and worse of all is the accessories which are not readily available”.
Mr Asamoah pointed out that, “In the Ashanti Region, only 719 receivers are on site doing their job after 1481 left the scene, and in the Brong Ahafo Region, only 298 are in the system from an original figure of 900. For the three northern regions, the number fell from 1500 to a mere 146.”  
He said the problem of lotto receivers abandoning their work was nationwide because between January and December 2009, “only 2890 lotto receivers out of 4890 were in active business in the Greater Accra Region, and out of a figure of 2000 in the Eastern Region, only 509 were working. In the Central Region, only 233 out of the 1200 were in active business”.
“In the Western Region, only 257 receivers were still operating from the initial figure of 1300, and for the Volta Region, the number has reduced from 1400 to 576.”