Members of the Ghana Lotto Operators Association (GLOA) are fuming with rage over what they term subtle attempts to collapse their business. They said the National Lotto Act 722 has a lot of defects, and its implementation will crowd them out of business. According to them, the law seeks to label them as Lotto Marketing Companies (LMCs), which development makes them subservient to the Department of National Lotteries. Speaking at a press conference, Mr Seth Asante Amoani, Consultant Secretary to GLOA said government proposed to regulate activities in a draft Bill presented to Parliament for passage into law. He said members of GLOA at a meeting with both the drafters and the Parliamentary Select Committee on Finance pointed out the flaws in the bill, but said the association has noted that the changes, which were to be effected following the consultations were not done to the bill. According to Mr Amoani, the memorandum accompanying the Bill sought to suggest that the activities of the industry ought to be condensed into a monopoly in favour of the state, but their association vehemently protested. Since the protest was accepted in good faith the memorandum should have been withdrawn to pave way for a review of the Bill before it was passed into law, he observed. He said it is an anomaly because private participation was accepted to be part of the bill, but the Act does not realize private participation in the lotto industry. He said the Act seeks to make private lotto operators sellers of DNL lotto coupons, but the association is opposed to that. He explained that the various actors have their lotto receivers and other marketing companies that operate under them. Mr Amoani said GLOA accepts the position that there should be a regulator in the lotto industry, but called on Parliament to take a second look at the Act and to amend that portion that seeks to abolish private lotto business in the country as well as reverse the decision that private lotto operators should submit their equipment to the state agency. He said GLOA employs about 500,000 Ghanaians including their permanent staff and lotto receivers and that in the event of the collapse of their jobs all these people stand to become unemployed. Credit: The Independent