The Chief Executive of the National Lotteries Authority, Kofi Osei Ameyaw, has approved 11 contracts worth more than half a million cedis to his sister-in-law.

All the signed contracts were dated November 29, 2017, and were awarded to Rama Hassan who is the sole proprietor of Ram’s Kitchen to buy more than a 1,000 bags of rice, canned drinks, corned beef and tinned tomatoes.

This has raised questions of conflict of interest.

But Rama said she won the contracts on merit and not because of her family ties with the Chief Executive.

“I heard about the bid process. I applied for it…I went through the process…I got the contract, free and fair.”

However, it has also been discovered that her company has closed down after executing the NLA contracts.

Per the Procurement Act, the NLA boss is not allowed to approve contracts more than 100,000 cedis. The highest of the 11 contracts is 99,470 cedis.

Meanwhile, a procurement expert, Godfrey Ewool has questioned why separate purchasing orders were made for food items from a single supplier.

He believes it would have been reasonable if multiple suppliers were involved.