NLA to begin payment of Winnings – Union Leader discloses

The General Secretary of the Financial Business and Service Employees Union (FBSEU) of the Ghana Federation of Labour (GFL) at the National Lottery Authority (NLA), Benjamin Mingle, has disclosed that payment of winnings will start from Friday, March 12, 2021 so as to reduce pressure on the Authority.

“We would also issue a statement to the general public, particularly to stakers of lotto that once the payment starts, they should not attack the workers anymore,” he stated.

Mingle made this known after a successful meeting organized between the Management of the NLA and the Union by the Labour Commission to find lasting solutions to happenings at the Authority.

According to him, the basic thing the Union want is to make sure the NLA stands up to its responsibilities by paying customers’ their winnings so that the attacks on workers would stop.

He said they have succeeded in getting the NLA to sit with the Union and for the two parties to set up a Committee to draw up a payment schedule of all the winning numbers dating back to October 2019.

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Benjamin Mingle gave the assurance that the Union will discuss with the police to ensure their security is guaranteed.

“Hopefully, from now on we would get to the end of the payment of the winnings.

“We also talked about a few outstanding issues pertaining to what caused the delay in the payments because this is about revenue.”

Mingle emphasized that though the Union is not part of management, its role is to influence policies to make sure workers are satisfied with the work they are doing.

Responding to whether KGL bailed out NLA by paying the outstanding winnings, the Union Chairman stated that the truth or false of it is not the issue.

According to him, the Director-General read a document at a meeting indicating that a contract agreement has been signed between the NLA and KGL.

The Labour Commission, he said, came in when workers on the March 1, 2021 decided not to work again because they were being attacked and invited both management and the Union to sit and thrash out their differences.

He stated that the Union has made a request to the Commission to continue the engagement on the operational challenges of the NLA.

It would be recalled that the National Lottery Authority (NLA) failed to pay big-ticket wins since last year, leaving winners to push their anger on the workers.

The situation compelled many customers to move away from NLA’s 5/90 games to the banker-to-banker lottery and thus affecting the revenue of not only the NLA but the incomes of NLA lotto marketers as well.

It is also alleged that payment of commissions to lotto marketers for the past months have been delayed.