The public welfare lottery was supposed to kill two birds with one stone: provide underprivileged groups with job opportunities and pool profits for social welfare spending. However, the groups which the lottery is supposed to benefit are in fact made to carry the burden of additional financial risk.
After the 921 Earthquake, the profits from the first three rounds of lottery ticket issues were slated for disaster relief. With a 40 percent chance to win -- the highest in the world -- and the novelty of the newly established lottery, demand naturally exceeded supply.
From Taipei City's previous scratch-and-win lottery and Kaohsiung City's recent lottery, we know that underprivileged people are eager for the chance to sell lottery tickets. However, in this first round, three million tickets remained unsold to vendors and therefore had to be retailed through nine major banks. How could such a situation arise? This is because the lottery's regulations have created a difficult situation of underprivileged vendors.
Tickets distributed to vendors are non-returnable. The Ministry of Finance has even required vendors to register purchases two weeks before the launch of the next round and prohibited them from changing the size of their order. Even worse, the ministry prohibits vendors from hiring other people to sell on their behalf.
Worst of all, the ministry only distributes tickets in batches of 500, which means vendors will have to bear the financial loss for any tickets that remain unsold. The tickets cost the vendors NT$92 apiece and retail for NT$100, with a profit of NT$8 per ticket sold. Therefore, if you sell 460 tickets, you will make NT$3,680; unfortunately, you will have to shoulder the cost of the remaining 40 tickets (costing NT$3,680) you did not sell. Apart from losing your profit, you will still have to pay the taxes on your gross sales.
Also, while we can understand the rules against vending lottery tickets on sidewalks and in MRT stations, we believe the one against selling outside designated sales areas seems to cut down the vendors' opportunities. For example, do we really expect Aboriginal vendors to be able to sell 500 tickets in the Aboriginal areas they reside in?
Some of my disabled friends and I initially wanted to sell lottery tickets in the hope of making some extra income and to gain a sense of accomplishment. However, none of us registered after we read these rules, because we felt these provisions sidetrack the poor.
We agree with some of the ministry's rules, such as non-returnable purchases and prohibitions on selling at lowered prices. The lottery market may be jeopardized if vendors are allowed to hoard tickets, or to monopolize sales and sell at cut-down prices.
An islandwide run for the tickets in the first round may prompt disabled vendors to buy up all the tickets in the next round. One day after the lottery was launched, the Taipei City Government's Bureau of Finance received over 40 calls from disabled people wanting to join in the next round.
However, brisk sales have not stopped the criticisms. The chief of the city's Social Affairs Bureau also remarked: "The lottery sales regulations were not designed for disabled people. The non-returnable distribution system and the scattered sales outlets are relatively disadvantageous for the disabled."
However, we find the 500-ticket basic unit unacceptable. The ministry says vendors can make joint purchases, but this may very well spawn disputes among vendors, for they have to pay taxes for the tickets they buy. In fact, the solution to this problem is easy: the ministry only needs to lower the basic unit from 500 tickets to 50, or even 10.
Most people will also agree that a risk of NT$46,000 each month is quite considerable. People who are truly underprivileged will find it difficult to take this kind of risk for an 8 percent commission. Once the bar is lowered to 10~50 tickets, I believe many disabled, Aborigines, single parents and poor people will be able and happy to sell lottery tickets.
In the first round, some of the vendors bought as many as 20,000 tickets at one go (an investment of NT$1.84 million!). Moreover, the average volume purchased by the 17,000 vendors was 1,600 tickets, which translates into almost NT$150,000. These sums make us wonder if these people really are "underprivileged." Perhaps the real underprivileged are those who cannot afford to sell lottery tickets!
The ministry's approach makes us feel that it is taking the viewpoint of one who runs a gambling house and takes commissions from the winners. No consideration seems to have been taken on how genuinely to benefit underprivileged groups. Officials who do not understand the plight of these groups have been building castles in the air. Perhaps the government never wanted the underprivileged to participate in the first place, preferring to team up with "black gold" interests.
He Mo manages a Chinese-language Web forum (http://disable.yam.com.tw/forums.htm) on issues concerning physically and mentally challenged people.
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