Staff of National Lottery Authority (NLA) on Monday, March 1, 2021, withdrew their services, in accordance with the Section 199 of the Labour Act 2003 (Act 651), to force home their grievances of non-payment of alleged non-payment of wins.

According to the staff who were clod in red, the Authority had not been able pay these tickets, which some dates back to last year.

This, the staff who are members of the Financial Business and Service Employees Union (FBSEU) of the Ghana Federation of Labour (GFL) at the NLA, said the call and suspension of work is in line with series of issues from the non-payment of win tickets, physical assaults being meted out to lotto receivers, and failure on the part of management to address issues.

• 

They explained that the brutalities being meted out to the lotto receivers is due to failure on the part of the NLA to redeem prizes.

Eric Tamakloe, Local Union Chairman of FBSEU of GFL at NLA addressing the furious workers and the media said the sales of the NLA for the first seven month of 2020, amounted to GH¢161.5 million while prizes (wins) also amounted to GH¢89 million for the same period.

This, therefore, means the NLA retained GH¢71.7 million as revenue for the seven month of 2020.

According to him, the suspension is backed by law Section 119 of the Labour Act, 2003 (Act 651), which permits that if a worker feels threatened for his life in the workplace, he/she can remove his/her services from the work to save his/her life.

He added that if the Director General of NLA, Kofi Osei-Ameyaw cannot better the working conditions of staff and the service being offered by the authority, he must go.

 Mr Tamakloe said the time to save NLA from collapsing is now and as staff, hence the president must help NLA not to be the next state institution that failed.

He said the action they have taken is an independent decision of the union that is not politically motivated nor an agenda being pushed by any politician.

The General Secretary of the FBSEU, Mr Benjamin Mingle addressing the media said at the NLA, said staff of the authority are being constantly attacked and threatened in other regions due to the inability to pay wins. Instances in other regions have led to police interventions.

He said the staff are not on strike, but have only removed their services due to the threats on the life of the workers.

“This is not a strike or demonstration, we have written a letter to the Labour Commission on our intentions and by March 4, 2021 if this matter isn’t resolved, we’ll take it to another level” the General Secretary said.

By Akutu Dede Adimer