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Lottery Control Commission appears dysfunctional

Mar 31, 2017 News

It has been reported in the media and letters have been published saying that the Guyana Lottery Control Commission has not met since its 2015 appointment.
When Minister of State Joseph Harmon was questioned on this during the last post-cabinet press briefing, he said that from what he understands there is a process which needs to be satisfied before money is taken out of the fund.
He said that on application to the Commission for deductions of funds or for monies to be paid out of the lotteries fund, the board would meet and then make the necessary recommendation to the Ministry of Finance.
He said that the process which he described is how he understands it is currently happening. However, he could not comment further to say whether the board is meeting and who would be approving monies being taken out of the Lottery fund.
According to Harmon, he would prefer if Minister of Natural Resources Raphael Trotman or Finance Minister Winston Jordan comment on the issue, particularly since Trotman is the Chairman of the Board. This newspaper was unsuccessful yesterday in getting an update from Minister Trotman.
In October last year, this newspaper had reported that based on the Auditor General Deodat Sharma’s report, it appears that the coalition A Partnership for National Unity and Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) government is handling the accounts of the Commission not much different from the former People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C) administration.
Despite this charge against the government, it was noted that one good deed was done, whereby monies were transferred from the fund into the Consolidated Fund. However, the remaining money was apparently being used without the approval of parliament.
The Guyana Lottery was set up in August 1996 by a Cabinet decision. It operates under an agreement between the Canadian Bank Note Ltd (CBN) and the Government of Guyana under the Government Lotteries Act, Cap. 80:07 of the Laws of Guyana.
The agreement allows for the CBN to pay license fees calculated at 24 per cent of its gross revenue. According to Sharma, over the years the Lotteries Commission would have received proceeds from the National Lottery which were used to make payments approved by Cabinet. He said that these earnings were retained in a separate bank account and none were paid to the Consolidated Fund.
He added that in 2015 when governments changed, the Finance Ministry moved to transfer $1.069B from the lotteries fund to the Consolidated Fund. Despite this, the Auditor General said that although the Ministry has been budgeting for lottery receipts, money continues to be spent without the approval of parliament.
According to him, aside from the $1.069B, there are significant sums which include previous year’s balances of $369.294M and proceeds of $421.754M received for 2015 still remain in the bank account and were used to meet expenditure.
Monies were used to cover expenses for Carifesta, Mashramani, Amerindian Heritage, Rehabilitation of D’Urban Park and Emancipation.
Kaieteur News had contacted Minister of Finance Winston Jordan who said that he would not be responding to the findings of the Auditor General in this regard, and that all questions would be answered at the level of the Public Accounts Committee.

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