Workers see misfortune in Lotteries Board move

An alleged underhand attempt by the Lotteries Board to hand over the last remaining lottery ticket that is yet printed in a Government institution to a private printer has got agitated employees of the State Printing Corporation (SPC) running behind authorities to stop the move.

SPC sources said tickets of the Mahajana Sampatha lottery which was started in 1976 had to be printed at a state institution as there was a statutory requirement to this effect. At the initial stages it had been printed at the Government Press, but thereafter for more than 25 years the printing had been at the State Printing Corporation, they said.

The tickets of all other lotteries conducted by the Lotteries Board are already printed by the Sri Lankan private sector and all the lottery tickets of the Development Lottery are printed in India.“The greed for commissions is the reason for moving to hand over this lottery ticket printing too to the private sector,” an SPC official alleged.

The Sunday Times understands that Mass Media and Information Minister Anura Priyadharshana Yapa had been against this attempt as the very survival of the SPC depends on it retaining the contract to print the lottery tickets. We were however unable to contact the Minister in this regard at the time of going to press.

Lotteries Board Chairman Upali Liyanage contacted in this regard on his cell phone bluntly told us: “ If you want information come and see me in office” and hung up. Earlier attempts to phone him in office proved futile.

According to SPC sources, the very survival of the Corporation employing 650 permanent employees and hiring about another 200 contract employees depended on the printing of about 2.5 million Mahajana Sampatha lottery tickets per draw and when the prize money accumulates the print order goes up to as much as seven million tickets per draw. The Mahajana Sampatha has two draws per week — on Tuesdays and Fridays.

The SPC’s other major business line involving the printing of school text books for the Education Ministry’s Educational Publications Department is in difficulties as it has yet to be paid Rs.160 million for books already printed and delivered. SPC trade union sources said following repeated appeals made to authorities, including President Mahinda Rajapaksa, President’s Secretary Lalith Weeratunga wrote to them recently informing them that the matter was being probed and that he had called for a report from the Lotteries Board regarding its move.