The government’s claim of abolishing a 10% tax on lottery winnings has been criticized as a misleading political maneuver. According to former Director-General of the National Lottery Authority (NLA), Sammi Awuku, the so-called abolition is meaningless because the tax was never enforced in the first place.
While the tax was initially proposed, extensive discussions with key stakeholders, including the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) and former Finance Minister Amin Adam, revealed that enforcing it would harm the lottery sector and be unfair to players. As a result, the tax was never implemented.
Additionally, the distinction between lottery and betting was highlighted, with the NLA operating under the Ministry of Finance and betting being regulated by the Gaming Commission under the Ministry of the Interior. The government’s conflation of the two was seen as a deliberate political tactic.
Awuku emphasized that the tax on lottery winnings was never collected and called for more honesty and transparency in policymaking, stressing that policies should focus on real impact rather than political spin.
