Mr. Sammi Awuku, the Director-General of the National Lottery Authority (NLA), has expressed his dissatisfaction with the fact that illegal lotto operators all over the country continue to benefit from the "veiled but strategic encouragement" of influential members of society, such as high-level media practitioners, traditional rulers, and politicians from different parts of the country. This is a major setback for the Authority, according to Mr. Awuku's assessment.
Mr. Awuku stated that quite frequently, when the leaders of such illegal gangs are apprehended and are to face prosecution, he, the NLA Boss, comes under a sudden tremendous pressure from all manner of influential persons who beg that the illegal operators should be pardoned and their crimes should be dealt with a human-face. Mr. Awuku noted that this occurs quite frequently.
"We want to make an appeal to you, the media, that when offenders come to you [to plead on their behalf], please take into consideration the larger national interests. There will be occasions when you will be receiving calls from some senior journalist pals who will inform you that a friend has been caught as an offender and they are calling to beg for forgiveness.
"One is forced to make a choice between friendship, relationships, and national interests; for the NLA, we have always opted to be on the side of the national interest. This puts one in a difficult position. It is not that you do not want to give a human face; however, if we want to give a human face to each and every decision that you want to take, there is no way that we can meet our revenue targets", Mr. Awuku noted in an address over the weekend during an Editors' Forum to familiarise the media on the products, policies, and operations of the NLA. The purpose of the Editors' Forum was to educate the media on the NLA's products, policies, and operations.
He made it crystal clear that he was upset about the situation, and he stressed that any attempt to reduce the degree of conformity with standards and rules would be exceedingly harmful to the advancement of the NLA, and that such an endeavour should under no circumstances be accepted by anyone. He was extremely frustrated about the situation.
Mr. Awuku continued by saying, "There are going to be some activities to drive out the illegals, and we make no distinction between people who are supported by big boys or small boys in the political system or traditional authorities."
"And when you are engaging in illegal behaviour, that behaviour is illegal. According to the data kept by the WLA in 2022, the total amount of money that member organisations around the world lost due to illicit actions was a staggering 1.3 trillion dollars.
"It is quite evident that if we are able to perform effectively as an Authority to check the wrongs in the system, then it would perform well to assist in addressing our primary concerns. The obstacles that stand in our way are terrifying, but so are the opportunities that lie ahead. Mr. Awuku made the following observation: "We believe that with the combined efforts of the NLA and that of our media friends, our collaborators, and third party clients, we should be able to clear the system and give the Ghanaian public a better service in our games."
The Director-General of the NLA also discussed several problems within the organisation and the solution that was implemented. He said, "Despite the victories that we have chalked up, we have also met some hurdles mostly owing to some of the treachery of some axis of evil in our system who guarantee that there is money leakage. We are putting a stop to some of the sabotage going on within our own ranks.
"Recently, we had reason to inform the security apparatus to apprehend some staff engaged in illegal activities within our organisation and sabotaging us from our IT front, and within a year, we had a loss of more than some 3 million cedis as a result of such illegal activities," said the compan
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