Alex Dadey
The Chamber of Indigenous Business and Investors (CIBI) has strongly rejected claims made in a recent investigative report by The Fourth Estate and the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) that the National Lottery Authority (NLA) handed over a GH¢3 billion business to KGL Technology Limited for just GH¢170 million annually.
The report alleged that the contract, signed in 2024, spans 15 years with an automatic five-year renewal clause, and framed it as an undervaluation of NLA’s operations.
However, CIBI, in a statement signed by its Executive Director, Alistair Nelson, described the report as “misleading, inaccurate and highly unprofessional,” insisting that the authors demonstrated “ignorance about lottery operations.”
According to CIBI, the arrangement between NLA and KGL is a licensing agreement, not a procurement contract. Licensing agreements, it explained, are authorised by the NLA Board under the National Lotto Act, 2006 (Act 722) and L.I. 1948, and do not require procurement processes.
“Licensing agreements issued by NLA to Lotto Marketing Companies, collaborators and private operators have never gone through the procurement process, since they are not procurement contracts,” the statement stressed.
The Chamber further explained that KGL is not the only company with such a long-term arrangement. Lots Services Ghana Limited signed a 15-year contract in 2013, Simnet Ghana Limited had a 10-year deal beginning in 2015, while Alpha Lotto Limited and other private lotto operators signed 10-year contracts in 2024.
Many Lotto Marketing Companies licensed in 2006 have also been operating for nearly two decades under transitional provisions in Act 722, the statement said.
On the financial claims, CIBI emphatically denied that NLA had ever run a GH¢3 billion annual business.
It said the Authority’s highest revenue on record was GH¢401 million in 2017, adding that it was factually impossible for a GH¢3 billion operation to exist prior to KGL’s entry.
“For the avoidance of doubt, the NLA has never generated GH¢3 billion annually since its establishment in 1957,” the statement said.
To support its point, CIBI released figures showing total prize payouts to lottery winners from 2013 to 2020 reached GH¢1.3 billion, averaging between GH¢122 million and GH¢209 million annually.
It also revealed that during the same eight-year period, the NLA paid just GH¢182 million in total to the Consolidated Fund, with yearly contributions ranging from GH¢11.8 million in 2014 to GH¢33.9 million in 2018.
By contrast, CIBI argued, the current licensing deal guarantees GH¢170 million annually from KGL to the Consolidated Fund – more than the Authority’s own highest annual payment in recent history.
“This clearly shows that the NLA-KGL deal is the best arrangement so far, and ensures greater value for the state,” the Chamber concluded.
A Daily Guide Report