NLA Launches 60 Years Anniversary

The National Lottery Authority (NLA), under its current director-general, Mr. Samuel Awuku, has officially launched the 60th year of its establishment and plans to celebrate this milestone.

The launch, which takes place today, September 29, at Fortune House at the company’s headquarters in Accra, is expected to be heavily attended by media celebrities, government officials, stakeholders, former directors-general and traditional chiefs, among others.

Mr. Awuku and his team will use the occasion to announce the programmes lined up for the celebration, which starts from this September and ends this December.

The climax of the anniversary is scheduled for December 9, when all directors-general of the lottery game within the African continent will converge on Accra to support and participate in the anniversary celebration.

The NLA was established in 1962 as the Department of National Lotteries, by Ghana’s first president, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, who invited a young man, 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. It has over the years contributed to national growth and development.

The NLA remains the leader in the lottery business in the sense that it has the legal mandate to regulate the industry and also operate lottery in the country.

In addition to this autonomous role, the main objective of NLA is to raise revenue to run its affairs and to pay whatever is left to government to support developmental needs or projects in the country.

Against this background, the 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 complemented the success story.

The NLA has its spread across the 16 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 Mr. Samuel Awuku, the director general of the authority.

Some successes and gains have been made by the NLA, particularly under the current administration.

To mention but a few are unity among staff, payment of a huge backlog of unpaid wins, discipline and punctuality at work, introduction of new games and fight against illegal lotto operators.

As part of the social responsibility, The Good Causes Foundation, under the aegis of the NLA, has been established with the mandate to carry out or 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, the NLA has been readmitted into the 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 para-statal, 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 the NLA boss to swindle innocent people and lovers of the game.

The authority loses revenue and at the same time gets a bad image for its brand. Linked to this are 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, though no such room exists at the NLA.

Source: Anchorghana