Tomorrow, Thursday, September 29, 2022, will mark the sixtieth year since the establishment of the National Lottery Authority (NLA) currently led by Samuel Awuku.
The Director General and his team at the NLA, will officially launch the event and also announce how they intend to celebrate the anniversary of its existence as far as lottery business is concerned.
Media people, celebrities, government officials, stakeholders, former director generals, traditional chiefs among others are expected to attend tomorrow’s event.
Mr Awuku, is billed to use the occasion to announce the programme of activities lined up for the celebration from September to December,2022.
The climax of the anniversary is scheduled for December 9, when all director generals of the lottery within the African continent will converge in Accra to support and participate in the anniversary celebration.
Lottery over the years, has contributed to national growth and development. Established in 1962 as the Department of National Lotteries, Ghana’s first president invited a young man by name Mr Brennan from Malta to help set up the DNL, which now operates as the National Lottery Authority (NLA) after Act 722 was enacted in 2006.
NLA remains the leader in the lottery business in the sense that it has the legal mandate to regulate the industry and also operate the lottery the country.
In addition to this autonomous role, the main objective of NLA is to raise revenue to run its operations, and to pay dividends to the government to support developmental needs or projects in the country.
Against this background, NLA undoubtedly is a national asset, but this feat did not come with ease.
The NLA brand was built with solid integrity as its core value, while other values such as respect, excellence, accountability, leadership, and teamwork equally complement the success story.
The NLA, spreads across the sixteen regions of the country, and continues to expand its tentacles to every nook and cranny.
The expansion project is duly on course under the current leadership of the Director General of the authority.
Some successes and gains have been made by the NLA, particularly under the current administration headed by Mr Awuku.
To mention but a few, include unity among staff, payment of huge backlog of unpaid wins, discipline and punctuality at work, introduction of new games, fight against illegal lotto operators, among others.
As part of its corporate social responsibility, the Good Causes Foundation, has been established with the mandate to reach out to the needy and the destitute in the society.
It basically operates in four areas namely; education, health, sports, and culture. In the past, what existed was commonly referred to as Special Projects.
The NLA boss believes that the authority through the foundation wants to give back to society by offering assistance to the vulnerable, people with disability, and the poor in the country.
Under Mr Awuku, NLA, has been readmitted into African Lottery Association and World Lottery Association, where the authority is expected to restore to its former status as a respected body in the global lottery business.
Challenges
As with all public organisations, the NLA as a state parastatal faces some challenges, but which are surmountable, the Director- General admits.
Foremost challenge is the illegal lotto operators. The operation of these people is giving the NLA boss sleepless nights, as their continued activities affect the revenue generation of the authority.
They do not pay licence to operate, and take some part of the market of the lotto business.
Another problem is the lotto fraudsters, who use the name of NLA to swindle innocent people and lovers of the game. The authority loses revenue and at the same time creates a bad image for its brand.
Link to this, is social media scammers. They use Facebook and WhatsApp to trap unsuspecting individuals to promise them winning numbers, which they claim emanate from the strong room of NLA. No such room exists though.
