Retirement Galore As Akufo-Addo retires National Lotteries Boss

President Akufo-Addo has instructed the Director-General of the National Lottery Authority (NLA), Kofi Osei Ameyaw to proceed on retirement.

The marching order was communicated to him in a letter dated March 10, signed by the Secretary to the President, Nana Asante Bediatuo. In the letter, Osei-Ameyaw was reminded that his one-year contract expired on February 20, 2021.

“Upon reaching the compulsory retirement age of 60 years on February 2020, the President of the Republic, by letter dated September 3, 2020, under my hand, granted you a one-year contract of service as Director-General of the National Lottery Authority,” the letter said.

“The contract elapsed on February 20, 2021, and, therefore, you are retired.”

The presidency further directed Mr Osei Ameyaw to hand over to Ernest Mortey, the Finance Director of the NLA.

Critics are interpreting the retirement of Osei-Ameyaw as a low-hanging fruit picked by President Akufo Addo to equalise on the massive criticism he received for forcefully retiring the anti-corruption crusader and Auditor General Yao Domelevo.

Domelevo was forced into retirement after what has been found to be deliberate targeting by the President because of how zealously Domelevo was exposing corruption in the Akufo Addo government.

Domevelo was retired even before he hit the regulated retirement age of 60 years, following a stale controversy whipped up by the Chairman of the Audit Service Board, Edward Dua Agyemang, the man accused of serious corruption by Yao Domelevo…

Even so, the allowance for Osei Ameyaw to retire gracefully is seen by many as rather undeserved by a man who was the very epicenter of corruption scandals at the NLA.

In 2020, an investigative story by Accra-based Joy News alleged that the cost of some 30,000 Point of Sale (POS) devices procured by the NLA had been inflated by over $10 million. And Osei Ameyaw was named as the inflator-in-chief.

He is believed to have creamed-off that huge amount of money from the purchase of POS alone.

Mr. Ameyaw had also been in the news for scandalously sole-sourcing padded supply contracts to a family member in a complex potpourri of alleged contract padding and conflict of interest.

And the outgoing DG was said to be incompetent while at the NLA. On March 1, 2021, the NLA staff Union threatened to strike over attacks on employees of the Authority due to the failure of the Authority to pay claims due lotto winners.