Sammi Awuku Explains Why NPP Never Collected Betting Tax

Sammi Awuku, the former Director General of the National Lottery Authority (NLA),  clarified the context in which the ex Finance Minister Mohammed Amin Adam said the Nana Akufo-Addo led Government never  implemented the controversial betting tax.

“Ladies and gentlemen, betting tax that they said they had abolished, we never collected betting tax. We never implemented the betting tax, so to come and tell Ghanaians that you have abolished something that was never implemented is to deceive the people of Ghana,” Dr. Amin Adam, Member of Parliament (MP) for Karaga Constituency noted at a press conference by the Minority in Parliament on Tuesday.

His comments have however sparked a heated controversy on which many saying he had peddled an untruth.

Sammi Awuku, MP for Akuapem North Constituency who happens to be the immediate past Director General of the NLA took to his Facebook page to clarify that lottery and betting are not the same therefore, Dr. Anim Adam should not be taken out of context.

Sammi Awuku, on his Facebook wall wrote:

On the So-Called Abolition of 10% Tax on Lottery Wins….

First off, It is important to clarify that lottery is different from betting and same as its taxes. 

The National Lottery Authority (NLA) is under the Ministry of Finance, while betting is regulated by the Gaming Commission under the Ministry of the Interior. This distinction matters, yet it’s often ignored for political convenience.

After listening to today’s budget presentation by the Finance Minister , I couldn’t help but notice a rather misleading claim that the government has abolished the 10% lottery tax on winnings.

But let’s be honest: how do you abolish a tax that was never implemented?

For the record, under the previous NPP administration, we engaged extensively with stakeholders, including the then Finance Minister and Hon. Amin Adam and the GRA after the announcement of the proposed 10% tax on lottery wins and recognized early on that taxing lottery winnings would be problematic.

It would have been difficult to administer, cripple the Lottery sector, unfair to players and ultimately more harmful than beneficial. That is why the tax was never implemented nor enforced.

So, let’s call it what it is. This isn’t an “abolition” but rather a convenient attempt to score political points.

The truth is, the NPP government had already made the decision not to burden Ghanaians with this lottery tax because we understood its impact.

Hon. Amin Adam won’t be wrong to say the Betting tax was never collected anyway since the Finance Minister Hon. Ato Forson also referred to the 10% on Lottery wins as “Betting Tax”. So if that’s what the Finance Minister refers to as Betting Tax then it was never implemented even though passed in 2023.

Ghanaians deserve honesty, not spin. Policies should be about real impact, not just headlines. Let’s focus on the issues that truly affect livelihoods.