The National Lottery Authority (NLA) has urged the public, staking players, Lotto Marketing Companies, media and stakeholders to ignore and discredit the news publication under the headline, "National Lottery Authority fails to pay big wins since April".

It said for the purpose of clarity and setting the records straight, it is NEVER TRUE that the NLA has failed to pay big winning tickets since April last year, adding, all outstanding prizes are being paid.

A statement signed by the Public Relations Unit of the NLA and copied to the Ghana News Agency in Accra said, Investigations, Auditing and due diligence were always conducted on all big winning tickets in order to prevent payment of fraudulent tickets due to the increasing activities of Lotto Fraudsters.

It said it was not true that there was an issue of non-payment of wins at various Banks.

The statement said the *959# mobile game had COME TO STAY and formed part of the Government's digitalization programme and would continue to operate the original 5/90 Lotto via MTN, Vodafone and AirtelTigo especially during this difficult period of Coronavirus pandemic.

It said the *959# had been doing well and served as an additional revenue stream for the NLA and Government and that the implementation of *959# was critical for the sustainability of the revenue generation of NLA.

The statement further stated that there was no shortage of paper roll and that Management had taken steps to address all the issues in relation to paper roll shortage.

It said: "the management of NLA would like to state that the issues raised by one Mr. Jacob Odame and his Lotto Marketers Association in the Northern Region are UNTRUE and we urge everyone to completely disregard that publication."