How to spend a billion dollars
Editorial
The Guyana Lottery Company (GLC) recently announced that it had transmitted $1B to the government from the proceeds of the Lotto, Scratch and 3-D games based on the contractual agreement drawn up at the start of its operations here. How this money (roughly US$5.5M) is to be spent is of course a key issue. It should be first said that the handling of these monies must be done with the utmost of openness and transparency. After all, the state is lopping off a generous portion of scarce disposable income funnelled by the populace into these games. It is an indirect form of taxation. There must be more information forthcoming on the use of the lotto proceeds from the Lotteries Commission and the government. Stabroek News has tried relentlessly over many months to wrest this information from the Lotteries Commission and key government officials such as the cabinet secretary, Dr Roger Luncheon and Khellawan Lall to no avail. There should be regularly published accounts of the money received from the GLC and how it has been spent. Secondly, the decision-making pertaining to the use of the funds should be clear cut and free of suffocating red tape. It should also be insulated from the temptation to make purely political decisions on how the funds should be applied. Ideally, the Lotteries Commission - in which the government has a highly influential role - should be given free rein in deciding on the use of the funds. The agreement restricts expenditure to social projects and once those are generally in line with the parameters of the state's social development constructs there should be no problem with approval. Decisions of this Commission should not then have to be subjected to the review, for instance, of cabinet or be countermanded by other state agencies. Guidelines should be published by the Commission on what social sector projects will be countenanced and funding limits for each type. It should be possible for local government agencies, NGOs and others to approach for a fixed portion of the financing. On the consideration of formal proposals, the commission should then give decisions in writing on why a project was sanctioned or turned down . What should the money be spent on? When this question was put to the respondents in our ‘What The People Say' feature there was unanimous agreement that the money should be parcelled out on a variety of projects instead of a behemoth such as a world class, multi-discipline stadium. The latter is not an easily resistible option as Guyana desperately needs such a facility to keep its many talented athletes competing for this country. Nevertheless, there is also wisdom in the view that spreading the lotto funds around would have a much broader effect. And there have been some other interesting ideas for the use of the funds including one from the Ministry of Health to finance life saving operations for children here. The health, education and sports sectors also lend easily to worthy projects. Ultimately, the Lotteries Commission should strive to ensure that the funds from this $1B tranche and future remissions are not frittered away. The money should be expended on initiatives that contain some mechanism that permits sustainability or multiplies benefits. This of course is an idealistic notion but for example, if seed money could be poured into a cancer care unit or a drug rehabilitation centre which featured cost recovery so it could become self-sustaining that would be a perfect prospect. Similarly, community projects could require counterpart financing or solid commitments to maintain the purpose for which the funds were originally sought. The same should also hold true for government projects. In association with the city council, the Ministry of Culture has poured some lotto money into playgrounds and recreational facilities in Georgetown and its environs. Will these areas be/are maintained by the responsible agency? Or will they be in need of rescuing shortly? How these funds are used and the apportioning process will say much about how the government sees and plays its important role.
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