By Prince Ahenkorah
The National Lottery Authority (NLA) has been thrust into the center of a fierce public storm following a hard-hitting investigative report by The Fourth Estate, the investigative arm of the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA).
The publication alleged that the Authority handed over a GHS3 billion revenue stream to KGL Technology Limited “in exchange for peanuts,” while also diverting funds meant for vulnerable groups to glamorous events and questionable enterprises.
The fallout has triggered legal action, sharp rebuttals, and a heated debate over the transparency and integrity of Ghana’s lottery operations.
The most dramatic escalation so far came on September 30, 2025, when legal practitioner and former NLA Board Chairman, Gary Nimako Marfo, filed a GHS10 million defamation suit against the Media Foundation for West Africa and its affiliates.
The writ, issued from the High Court in Accra, names journalist Seth J. Bokpe, MFWA Executive Director Sulemana Braimah, editors William Nlanjerbor Jalulah and Philip Teye Agbove, as well as the Foundation itself, as defendants.
Nimako insisted that the publication, which prominently carried his photograph, was defamatory, ill-motivated and deliberately intended to damage his reputation and that of the NLA board on which he served.
He is therefore seeking declarations from the court that the story was defamatory, published without just cause and calculated to stir public disaffection. Alongside these, he is asking for GHS10 million in damages, a retraction, a public apology with the same level of prominence as the original publication, and legal costs including solicitor’s fees.
According to the writ, he is represented by Marfo & Associates and service of the summons will be effected directly on the defendants.
While Nimako battles the issue in court, former Director-General of the NLA, Samuel Awuku, has mounted a strong public defense of the institution and of his stewardship.
Awuku has described the Fourth Estate’s publication as lopsided and mischievous, accusing the outlet of deliberately conflating strategic marketing expenditures with disbursements from the NLA’s Good Causes Foundation.
In a detailed rebuttal, the Akuapem North Member of Parliament expressed disappointment that despite granting an interview to the journalists on August 18, 2025, the resulting story completely ignored the explanations he provided and instead pushed a narrative designed to inflame public sentiment.
Awuku stressed that the Good Causes Foundation and the Authority’s Marketing Department are distinct. Sponsorships of high-profile events such as the EMY Awards, the Ghana CEO Summit and the Africa Prosperity Dialogue were initiatives undertaken by the Marketing Department under the Caritas Lottery Platform.
These were not funded with Good Causes money but were part of a deliberate strategy to position the NLA brand among corporate leaders and stakeholders who, in turn, contributed to growing the Caritas kitty.
According to him, this marketing-led strategy transformed the Caritas Platform from a negligible pool into generating over GHS11 million between 2021 and 2024.
These funds, he argued, are what enabled the Good Causes Foundation to expand its social interventions, contrary to the impression created that money for the poor was wasted on glamorous events.
He conceded that some high-profile sponsorships were undertaken, but emphasized that they constituted only about five percent of the Foundation’s total budget and were strategic investments rather than reckless spending.
The Chamber of Indigenous Business & Investors has also entered the fray, taking strong issue with The Fourth Estate’s characterization of the NLA’s dealings with KGL Technology Limited.
The Chamber’s Executive Director, Alistair Nelson, accused the journalists of sensationalism and ignorance of how the lottery industry works. He argued that the arrangement between NLA and KGL is not a procurement contract as reported, but a licensing agreement legally sanctioned under Sections 5 to 14 of the National Lotto Act, 2006 (Act 722), as well as Regulations 12 and 13 of L.I. 1948. Licensing agreements, Nelson explained, are not subject to the procurement processes that govern contracts, and therefore it was both misleading and unprofessional for the Fourth Estate to describe the KGL arrangement as such.
The Chamber further dismissed the central claim that the Authority had given away a GHS3 billion business.
Nelson pointed to audited revenue data which shows that in its entire history, the NLA has never generated GHS3 billion annually. Between 2013 and 2020, the Authority generated a total of GHS2.77 billion over eight years, with the highest annual revenue recorded being GHS401 million in 2017.
Over the same period, the NLA paid out GHS1.37 billion in winnings to the staking public. To claim that there was a GHS3 billion business stream to be handed over, he argued, is factually wrong and misleading.
The Chamber also countered the suggestion that KGL was paying peanuts. In fact, he argued, the NLA-KGL licensing arrangement has been the most financially productive in recent history.
From 2019 to 2024, KGL’s annual payment of GHS170 million to the Consolidated Fund exceeded the total amount that the NLA itself remitted in the eight years before KGL’s involvement.
Between 2013 and 2020, the NLA paid only GHS182 million into the Fund in total. By comparison, KGL’s payments have been larger and more consistent. Nelson insisted this was evidence that far from giving away resources, the licensing deal has actually strengthened the NLA’s contributions to the state.
Responding to accusations that KGL enjoys a monopoly over the 5/90 USSD lottery short code, Nelson said exclusivity is the norm in the industry. Each USSD or online lottery product has an exclusive license, he explained, citing other examples like *787 for Wotiriyie, *766 for Atena, and *946 for Pick4/Pick1.
The suggestion that KGL alone is enjoying unfair monopoly was, in his view, false and misleading. He further argued that the NLA itself, under Act 722, has no mandate to sell tickets directly to the public and therefore must depend on licensed marketing companies and collaborators like KGL.
Nelson also emphasized that KGL bears the full operational risks of running the 5/90 platform, including IT infrastructure, maintenance, daily payouts to winners, marketing, and telecom charges.
This means no financial burden is placed on the state. He pointed to the company’s track record of timely tax payments to the Ghana Revenue Authority as evidence of its compliance and reliability.