6,000 Ghanaians Win 2001 Visa Lottery

Accra - 6,000 Ghanaians have been notified as winners of the 2001 Visa Lottery. 6,107 Nigerians have also won. This is contained in a June 23 State Department announcement of the results of the 2001 Visa Lottery. Ethiopia - 5,007; Morocco - 5,000; Egypt - 2,383; Somalia - 2,364; Sierra Leone - 2,240; Sudan - 1,661; Kenya - 1,606 and Liberia - 1,193 followed in that order. Ghana's neighbours, Togo had 699, Cote d'Ivoire - 199 and Burkina Faso - 18. In all, 11 million applications were received from over 180 countries, 53 of them in Africa.

The announcement said close to 90,000 applicants have been registered and notified, out of which the first 50,000 who are able to satisfy all the requirements will be issued with immigrant visas. It said during the visa interview, principal applicants must provide proof of a high school education or its equivalent or show two years of work experience in an occupation that requires at least two years of training or experience within the past five years.

Only participants in the DV-2001 who have been selected for further processing have been notified, hence those who have not received notification were not selected.

The dates for the mail-in period for the DV-2002 lottery are scheduled from October 2 to November 1, 2000.

Instructions for the 2002 programme, including the mailing address for the new Kentucky Consular Centre where entries would be sent, will be publicised in early August.