The US Embassy in Accra on Wednesday announced that applications for the 2006 Diversity Via (DV) Lottery would be accepted between November 5, 2004 and January 7, 2005.
A statement issued in Accra said persons seeking to apply must register electronically on line through the designated Internet website, www.dvlottery.state.gov during the period.
"Paper entries and mail-in requests for Diversity Visa Lottery registration are not accepted," the statement said.
The annual DV programme makes permanent residence visas available to persons meeting the simple, but strict, eligibility requirements, it said.
Computer-generated random lottery draw DV entries.
The visas are distributed among six geographic regions with a greater number of visas going to regions with lower rates of immigration. There is no visa going to citizens of countries sending more than 50,000 immigrants to the US in the past five years.
Within each region, no one country may receive more than seven per cent of the available DV in any one year.
The statement said applicants must meet either the education or training requirement of the DV programme.
"An applicant must have either a high school education or its equivalent, defined as successful completion of a 12-year course of elementary and secondary education, or two years of work experience within the past five years in an occupation requiring at least two years of training or experience to perform."
The Act establishing the DV makes available 50,000 permanent resident visas annually to persons from countries with low rates of immigration to the US.