The Director General of the National Lottery Authority has opined that the contract with KGL needs to be renegotiated because the state could gain a lot more.
He was answering a direct question posed by the Public Accounts Committee on Wednesday, 29 October, 2025 when his institution took its turn at the ongoing public hearing.
Asked to give his “candid” opinion on whether or not the KGL deal was beneficial to the nation, the DG, Mohammed Abdul-Salam, did not say the deal was bad and must be abrogated.
He only told the Committee that the benefits to the state from the contract in its current state could be more, thus, there is the need to renegotiate it.
He said, “Thank you very much. To answer this question, my position is that the state can gain a lot more from this contract. So, there is every reason for it to be renegotiated to bring in more benefits to the state.”
THE DEAL
The NLA in 2022 signed a GH¢55 million agreement with KGL Technology Limited, giving the tech firm the licence to operate NLA’s 5/90 online game as a collaborator for the year 2022.
That was a renegotiated contract following the one signed in November 2019.
The deal granted KGL a Provisional Licence Agreement to operate its 5/90 Game as an online lottery game on a pilot basis for two years.
Reports indicate that as part of the agreement, KGL paid GH¢20 million to NLA in 2020 and paid GH¢25 million to NLA in 2021.
Additionally, a substantive 10-year agreement renewable every three years was to begin in January 2022 between NLA and KGL.
With the new direction of management under the leadership of its former Director-General, Mr Samuel Awuku, and the former Board of Directors chaired by Togbui Francis Albert Nyonyo, NLA renegotiated the deal to secure GH¢25 million more for the Authority, bringing the total amount to GH¢55 million for the year 2022. KGL will, in addition to the GH¢55 million, pay a licensing fee of GH¢1.7 million.
The work of KGL was to enable people to stake lotto on their phones without going to the traditional kiosks to have it done by lotto sale agents.NLA cannot sell the lotto directly, so it engages Lotto Marketing Companies (LMCs) to sell the NLA lotto for a commission and the revenue generated goes into the Lotto Account, by law.
After paying all lotto wins, NLA is required by law to transfer the balance in the account to the Consolidated Account every month.
The LMCs paying NLA to load the Point of Sale (POS) machine was fading away, as the majority of lotto stakers now purchase their lotto directly on phones via a short code.
Due to the technology advancement, the NLA needed to be at par, as the lottery was now being done online, on people’s phones.
As the NLA surfed through tech gurus to choose a partner, it found KGL and following discussions, including correcting the wrongs, NLA granted KGL the three-year provisional licence in 2019 for KGL to sell NLA’s 5/90 lotto online.
However, concerns have been raised about the contract, with calls for the state to ensure it is not shortchanged.
PAC
Meanwhile, the Auditor General in its 2024 report cited that the management of NLA deducted withholding taxes totaling GH¢1,445,825.62 in 2022 from payments to various suppliers and vendors but did not remit the same to the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), but the NLA told PAC it had paid subsequent to the audit.
Again, in 2023, withholding taxes totaling GH¢3,284,008.34 were deducted from payments to various suppliers and vendors, but did not remit the same to the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA). Management said it had paid part, and the rest would be paid.
The Ranking Member of the Committee, Samuel Atta Mills, who chaired, did not take the excuse lightly, arguing that the money should have been paid since it belonged to GRA in accordance with the law.
The Deputy Minister for Finance, Thomas Nyarko Ampem, who led the NLA delegation, indicated that the current management has reached an agreement with the GRA and now pays the withholding taxes monthly while also paying the debt in installments.
PAC is still considering the report of the Auditor-General on the Public Accounts of Ghana – Public Boards, Corporations and other Statutory Institutions for the period ended 31 December 2024.
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