Rights groups cry foul over lottery ticket sales

Rights activists representing handicapped people have attacked the Ministry of Finance over what it claims are broken promises regarding the recently launched National Welfare Lottery.

They claim it is the banking sector, rather than the disadvantaged who are benefitting from the new scheme.

New Party legislator Cheng Lung-shui (鄭龍水), himself visually impaired, said yesterday that the finance ministry had promised on Sept. 2 that licensed vendors from disadvantaged groups would be allowed 10 days at the beginning of each month during which they alone would be allowed to sell tickets. Banks would only be allowed to sell remaining tickets after that time.

Nine banks across the island -- the Land Bank of Taiwan, Taiwan Cooperative Bank, First Commercial Bank, Hua Nan Commercial Bank, Chang Hwa Commercial Bank, Medium Business Bank of Taiwan, Bank of Taipei, Kaohsiung Bank and the Directorate-General of Postal Remittances and Saving Banks -- have been selling tickets since Dec. 1, the first day tickets went on sale.

Vendors of the tickets yesterday said they were angry that they had to compete with banks.

One physically handicapped couple selling tickets in Taipei, known only by their family name Chen, said they felt cheated by the government.

"How can we compete with them?" they said, pointing to the First Commercial Bank, outside which the couple were selling tickets.

"They have money, and we don't. The government says it wants to help disadvantaged groups, but they really just want to help the banks," he said.

Officials at the Ministry of Finance's monetary affairs bureau -- which operates the lottery -- was quick to deny the accusation, saying that disadvantaged groups such as the handicapped, single parents and Aborigines are still given priority when it comes to ticket sales.

Hou Li-yang (侯立陽) of the Bureau of Monetary Affairs said these groups had only ordered 20 million of the 30 million tickets issued for this month. The bureau then authorized the Bank of Taiwan, which prints and issues tickets, to release between 3 and 4 million tickets to banks for sale.

Between 6 and 7 million lottery tickets still remain at the Bank of Taiwan, and disadvantaged groups can claim these tickets before Dec. 10.

Another bureau official, who asked not to be named, was angered when asked whether the ministry had gone back on its promise.

"It's impossible to make some people happy," he said.

Chang Chia-lin (張嘉琳), a spokesperson for the Handicapped Alliance, said her organization had had many phone calls from people like the Chens complaining that banks were selling tickets.

Another problem, Chang said, is that benefits to vendors of the tickets are minimal.

Each licensed vendor can only order and sell 500 tickets per month. At a profit of NT$8 per ticket, this amounts to a monthly income of NT$4,000 -- income, she said, which is then subject to income tax.

"And handicapped people are saying that really isn't a lot of money," she said.

The alliance has sought legal counsel on the issue and has not ruled out organizing a protest within the next two weeks if the situation does not change.

The Chens said they both have full-time jobs, so profit from lottery ticket sales is just supplementary income for them.

"It helps," the Chens said. "But what we really want is for the government to remember the welfare in the `Welfare Lottery,'" they said.