Former Director-General of the National Lottery Authority (NLA), Sammi Awuku, has refuted a report by the Fourth Estate suggesting that funds meant for the NLA Good Causes Foundation were misapplied during his tenure.
Awuku, in a detailed statement, explained that the Foundation was born out of his vision to replicate the positive societal impact he had observed in the Ivory Coast, where lottery proceeds were channelled into life-changing projects.
With the support of the Governing Board, he rebranded the Authority’s Special Projects into the NLA Good Causes Foundation on October 20, 2021, to serve as a structured vehicle for delivering social interventions.
According to him, this mandate was firmly grounded in law. Citing Section 2 (3) of the National Lotto Act, 2006 (Act 722), Awuku stressed that the purpose of the lottery was to provide care and protection for the needy, the aged, orphans, destitute children, and the physically or mentally afflicted.
“The Good Causes Foundation, which is not a lottery as has been purported, was established to develop, implement, and maintain a structure that focused on Health, Education, Youth and Sports Development, and Arts and Culture,” he explained.
He further clarified that the NLA Governing Board also approved discretionary projects each year, which allowed the Foundation to respond to community needs beyond its four main pillars.
In defending the Foundation’s record, Awuku highlighted significant social interventions carried out during his administration, including sanitation and water projects that directly benefitted communities across the country.
He said these efforts were not only aligned with government initiatives but also provided much-needed relief to ordinary Ghanaians, with completed projects fully commissioned and handed over.
Awuku insisted that the publication by the Fourth Estate failed to capture this broader picture, focusing instead on selective narratives that painted an incomplete story.
“The Foundation has made tangible, life-changing contributions to society, and it is misleading to reduce its impact to claims of glamorous events and questionable enterprises,” he maintained.
