The Director General of the National Lottery Authority (NLA), Sammi Awuku has disclosed his outfit has added extra playing time for the public to enjoy and also get more revenues to resource the veterans.
Since 2018 there has been a historic collaboration between NLA and Veterans Administration Ghana (VAG) which has yielded positive results towards the socio-economic development and financial empowerment of the veterans.
Speaking at the launch of a new lottery app called “Mega6”, the Director General of the NLA stated that the NLA signed a collaboration agreement with the Veterans Administration Ghana in furtherance of its objects under section 22 of ACT 844 to exclusively hold lottery, raffles or other similar games for and on behalf of VAG.
According to Sammi Awuku, the agreements meant all lotto operators, agents and writers operating with VAG licenses, upon the lapse of the termination notice period, ceased to be valid and all such persons were advised to register with NLA or risk being sanctioned.
Mr. Awuku said his outfit is relaunching the VAG Lotto Game, exclusive to the Lotto Marketing Companies (LMCs), to give players more time to play before the “The VAG Lotto Draw” which hitherto was held at 8:30 am will now be held at 10:00 am from Monday to Saturday.
He stressed that renewing his outfit's commitment to their partnership, the NLA would endeavour to honour the contractual obligations promptly.
Mr. Awuku also announced the purchase of four new ultra-modern lotto draw machines to replace the current godmother machines which at best can be described as pieces of artefacts befitting museums.
To him, since its establishment, the godmother machines have not been changed and have been phased out of the system.
“The new draw achiness is to help enhance what we do and apart from the fact that people are superstitious, they seem to be addicted to the old draw achiness. We can no longer use those machines because they are now obsolete, the parts are not available anymore and they are not even being manufactured anymore hence the need for new ones to replace the old ones.
“Our four new Draw Machines will be used for our Monday Special. Midweek, Friday Bonanza and National Weekly Lotto Games, while our Old Draw Machines dedicated to the Lucky Tuesday, Fortune Thursday, and Sunday Aseda Games will be used as they currently pertain until we withdraw all the old draw machines entirely.”
Mr. Awuku also disclosed that his outfit has established an advisory unit to give free financial advice to winners of the game. He believed this new direction will enable winners of draws to use the funds judiciously for it to be a testament of the goodwill of the lottery.
He added the Authority is working to get players to be business-minded, so they could use the funds for business ventures and make the game more profitable.
He expressed his heartfelt gratitude to the Minister of Defence, Hon. Dominic Nitiwul, for his continuous support to VAG and the NLA and also thanked the cherished lotto marketing companies saying; “we appreciate your loyalty and commitment to the business over the years. We couldn’t thank you enough for being on this journey with us and in the coming weeks, we will honour you. To our patrons and playing public, be rest assured that the new draw machines will not change the game's dynamics but bring more excitement”.
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