The Federal Government is set to recover N100 billion accumulated debt owed by lottery operators.
The Minister of Special Duties and Inter-governmental Affairs, Senator George Akume, on Friday, said Akume, said the National Lottery Regulatory Commission was putting a finishing touch to a Central Monitoring System designed to curb fraud in the industry.
According to him, the system will also ensure sustainable revenue generation for the government.
Akume added that an extra ministerial committee constituted to recover the revenue owed to the government by lottery operators would be activated within two weeks.
“Since 2005, Lottery business has not been properly organised. It has been one step forward and 10 steps backward. Lottery business must be done in Nigeria the way it is done elsewhere,” the minister said.
He lamented that since the enactment of Lottery Act in 2005, the industry had lacked proper coordination.
The minister said the Federal Government had applied enough diplomacy in order to encourage operators in the lottery industry to build their business and contribute to national development, but they have failed to appreciate the goodwill.
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Akume, who was furious that major players in the industry shunned a stakeholders meeting scheduled by his office to resolve the infractions, vowed that sanctions were underway for such operators that have refused to respect the laws regulating their business environment.
The minister, while rescheduling the stakeholders meeting for next week, warned that those interested in lottery business, must accept the global standards which the country had aligned with.
Also speaking, the Director- General of National Lottery Regulatory Commission, Mr. Lanre Gbajabiamila, said the commission was working on a Bill seeking to amend the Lottery Act.
Gbajabiamila, who acknowledged that the commission has had challenges resolving the issue of double taxing lottery operators by state governments, also noted that the new Bill will address all the grey areas.
He further assured that the commission would work with all stakeholders in the industry to end the non-remittance of revenue to the government.
