Finance Minister needs to get facts right on lottery revenue — Dr Razak Opoku

Former Public Relations Officer of the National Lottery Authority (NLA), Dr Razak Opoku, has challenged the Finance Minister to get his facts right regarding the benefits Ghanaian taxpayers have received from the lottery industry.

Dr Opoku said taxpayers had already benefited substantially from the lottery business, citing payments allegedly made by KGL to the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) and the NLA.

According to him, KGL paid more than GH¢153 million to the GRA on April 16, 2026, for the 2025 financial year alone.

He further stated that taxpayers, through the NLA, received more than GH¢173 million from KGL during the same period.

Dr Opoku questioned why the NLA received GH¢173 million from KGL while the Ministry of Finance received only GH¢10 million in dividends from the Authority.

“As Finance Minister, he needs to be interested in understanding how the NLA received GHS 173 million from KGL, while the Ministry of Finance received only GHS 10 million in dividends from the NLA,” he said.

He also pointed to contributions from other private lottery operators, stating that 29 private lotto operators licensed by the NLA paid GH¢44.9 million to the Authority in 2025.

Dr Opoku said he believed the private operators also paid taxes to the GRA, arguing that the figures contradicted any suggestion that taxpayers had not benefited from the lottery business since 2018.

“Therefore, strictly speaking, the Finance Minister has engaged in misinformation on this particular subject matter. It is NEVER TRUE that this is the first time the taxpayers are benefitting from lottery business since 2018,” he stated.

Rather than focusing solely on reviewing agreements within the lottery sector, Dr Opoku said the government should pay greater attention to what he described as financial wastage at the NLA.

He questioned the use of more than 90 per cent of the NLA's income on the Good Causes Foundation and other corporate social responsibility activities while the Authority paid only GH¢10 million in dividends to the Ministry of Finance.

“The major problem of NLA is wastage of financial resources,” he said.

Dr Opoku argued that the issue was therefore not necessarily about reviewing agreements but about addressing the manner in which the NLA's financial resources were being utilised.

“It is not necessarily about reviewing of agreements but it is about tackling wastage of financial resources at the NLA as a resetting government,” he stated.

He further alleged that increased revenue received by the NLA was accompanied by increased spending on what he described as unnecessary internal operations and activities, rather than corresponding benefits to taxpayers.

“The more NLA receives the more they used the money on needless internal operations and activities at the detriment of the taxpayers,” he added.