Former Director-General of the National Lottery Authority (NLA), , has dismissed the government's claim of abolishing the 10% tax on lottery winnings, calling it a misleading attempt to score political points.
Reacting to the 2025 Budget Statement presented by Finance Minister Dr.
Cassiel Ato Forson, Awuku insisted that the so-called abolition was meaningless since the tax was never enforced under the previous administration. "After listening to today's budget presentation, I couldn't help but notice a rather misleading claim that the government has abolished the 10% lottery tax on winnings," Awuku stated. "But let's be honest: how do you abolish a tax that was never implemented?" He explained that while the tax was initially proposed, extensive consultations with stakeholders-including the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) and then-Finance Minister Amin Adam-revealed that enforcing it would cripple the lottery sector and be unfair to players.
As a result, it was never applied. "The truth is, the NPP government had already made the decision not to burden Ghanaians with this lottery tax because we understood its impact," he argued.
