NLA makes strides despite SIMNET Ghana shut down

To ensure that lotto retailers continue to sell the National Lottery Authority (NLA) products,  it has installed computer servers, related equipment,  and embarked on expansion works on its new and latest platform.

According to the NLA, the new platform would ensure that retailers assess their credit balances and facilitate business operations, following a shut down by SIMNET Ghana Limited, a service provider of NLA.

SIMNET Ghana Limited in October this year shut down its support system thereby crippling the business of the NLA and the two institutions, therefore, were engaged in a legal tussle over billings.

Mr Kplorlali  Shine Gbologa, Director of Corporate Planning and Sales, NLA, made these known at a meeting with its retailers from all sales zones in the Greater Accra Region, on Thursday in Accra.

He told the retailers that the NLA could not organise a meeting immediately following the shut down because the authority needed to take control before engaging them in a meeting.

Mr Gbologa said the purpose of the meeting was to explain the strides made by the NLA to expand its new platform facility so that it could absorb all affected retailers, and gather the process of assessing credit balances so as to refund their balances on the new point of sales machines.

He noted that the manner in which the shutdown was orchestrated could only lead to an attempt to cripple the business of NLA, adding “despite this, the NLA survived the SIMNET shutdown and is currently in operation not an optimal level.’

According Mr Gbologa, the NLA had taken swift measures to restore business to normalcy and added “all affected retailers will be trained and equipped with technical know-how in hand in handling and operating the new point of sale machines known as PADPM’s.

Mr Gbologa said these steps were expected to start from mid-November this year.

Mr David Lamptey, official of the Legal Section of the NLA, told the retailers that the Court of Appeal had quashed the ruling of an Accra High Court, which ordered the NLA to pay “a substantial amount to SIMNET Ghana.’’

He noted that the Court of Appeal has ruled that the High Court erred in law when it gave orders to the NLA to pay some monies to SIMNET Ghana.

Source: GNA