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Trotman, Jordan to discuss fate of Lotteries Commission

Apr 01, 2017 News

Minister of Finance, Winston Jordan, and Minister of Natural Resources, Raphael Trotman, are to meet sometime in the near future to discuss what will be the fate of the Guyana Lottery Control Commission.
Minister Trotman made this disclosure yesterday when this newspaper contacted him on the matter. Kaieteur News had reported yesterday that the Commission has not met since its July 2015 appointment.
According to Trotman, it is true that a meeting of the commission has not been held for the longest while. He said that there is an ongoing discussion between himself and the Finance Ministry over the matter. However, Trotman said that he along with Minister Jordan would still have to meet at some point and discuss whether it is best to leave the Commission in its current form or to resuscitate it. Trotman said that it is an issue which would have to be ironed out.
When asked what is happening presently as the Commission is not meeting, Trotman said that the Ministry of Finance is overlooking the fund. Besides Trotman, the other members of the board are Vladim Persaud, Pamela Briggs, and a representative from a youth council.
The current operation of the Commission had been criticised by Auditor General Deodat Sharma in his 2015 report. According to Sharma, evidence showed that the current government was operating the fund similar to the manner utilised by the People’s Progressive Party Civic when in government. The glaring similarity highlighted was the expenditure of money without parliamentary approval.
According to the Auditor General’s report, in 2015 the new government, through the Finance Ministry, had transferred $1.069B from the lotteries fund to the Consolidated Fund, and portions of the remaining money has been spent without the approval of parliament.
Money would have been taken out to be spent on covering expenses for Carifesta, Mashramani, Amerindian Heritage, Rehabilitation of D’Urban Park and Emancipation.
Despite this flaw the Auditor General said that the APNU+AFC government made a good move by transferring $1.069B from the fund to the Consolidated Fund. According to Minister of State, Joseph Harmon, the process for funds to be taken out of the Lotteries Fund is that if an application is made to the Commission for deduction 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 Finance Ministry.
The Commission oversees money collected from the Guyana Lottery Company games. The lottery was set up 21 years ago 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.
The agreement provides for the CBN to pay a license fee which is calculated at 24 per cent of its gross revenue. Sharma, in his report, had said that over the years, the Commission would have received proceeds from the National Lottery which were used to make payments approved by Cabinet.
Further, he said that these earnings were held in a separate bank account and none were paid to the Consolidated Fund. 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.

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