GAMING NEWS
SIU Raids South African Lottery Commission after R300m Fraudulent Lotto Payments The Special Investigating Unit (SIU) raided the offices of the National Lotteries Commission (NLC) in Kimberley recently after the SIU had previously found that NLC funds to the tune of R300 million were allegedly spent on items like cars and private homes. The NLC says it is co-operating with the SIU investigation.
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his follows an explosive report by the SIU submitted to Parliament recently detailing collusion between NLC officials and purported non-profit organisations. It found that in a series of transactions, millions of rands at a time were funnelled from the NLC - funds which were meant to develop facilities like drug rehabilitation centres, old age homes, and youth empowerment facilities, but instead went towards purchasing cars and luxury homes. SIU spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago told Fin24 that the raid on the offices of the NLC in Kimberley were part of an advancing investigation into corruption at the commission. “Yes, we are at the moment in Kimberley and we have a warrant to search and seize documents here in Kimberly because of the allegation that we are looking into,” Kganyago said.
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Kganyago said the raid would not stop at the operations of the NLC but would include the private residences of implicated NLC officials and the questioning of those implicated. “We will call and question individuals because people are also checking the houses of officials in the commission in line with investigating the allegations that were made,” said Kganyago. During a Post Cabinet briefing, Minister in the Presidency Mondli Gungubele welcomed the raid as “remarkable progress” by the SIU. “This will ensure the necessary steps can be taken to hold accountable persons or organisations implicated in the unlawful misappropriation of funds earmarked to benefit the poor,” said Gungubele.
National Lotteries Commission spokesperson Ndivhuho Mafela said the NLC is co-operating with the SIU investigation.
The NLC serves as South Africa’s only lotteries and sports pool betting regulator, but also serves as a grant funder for nongovernment organisations established in causes aimed at improving the lives of South Africans. National Lotteries Commission spokesperson Ndivhuho Mafela said the NLC is co-operating with the SIU investigation. “We have opened all our offices to enable the SIU’s investigation. We welcome the investigation as one of the checks and balances of state institutions. “We have also availed our legal team to support their investigation, and they have interviewed employees. We will await the SIU’s report on the investigation and consider their recommendations,” said Mafela. During a meeting with Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Trade and Industry, Minister of Trade Industry and Economic Development Ebrahim Patel committed to dissolving the board of the NLC before its expiry date at the end of March.
Ghana’s Planned Social Media Tax will Impact Gambling and Betting alongside Facebook and Google A new plan to impose taxation on global social media giants like Facebook and Google by the Ghananian government, will have profound implications for the country’s gaming operators.
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The Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) is planning on rasing US$4170-million (GHC 2.7-billion) from taxe as it targets betting, gaming, and e-commerce companies this year. The GRA plans to collect most of its tax revenue from betting, gaming, and online companies including Facebook, Google, Netflix, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Tiktok in a tax plan its says it is ready to deply by the
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/ Gaming for Africa / gfamagazine.com
end of 2022. The Commissioner of the Domestic Tax Revenue Division (DTRD) of the GRA, Mr Edward Appenteng Gyamerah stated that the GRA is rolling out a policy to enable it to have a fair share of taxes from most of these companies. The Commissioner said they had already started discussions with some of these online foreign entities and they’ve already started registering
within Ghana to comply with the new policy. The Commissioner also stated that they were developing a system to monitor operations of these entities which is currently under test trial and they had that it would be deployed in the second quarter of 2022. He, therefore, appealed to the players and other stakeholders to support the authority to collect the right taxes due to the state.
