Taiwan's national welfare lottery has been running for just six months, but yesterday ticket vendors -- most of whom are mentally or physically challenged -- said they are already seeing dwindling profits and are asking Taipei City officials for help.
Lottery sellers made the claim at a public hearing yesterday organized by KMT City Councilor Lin Yi-hua (
The two Taipei City officials were prompted to hold the hearing following a recent initiative by the Taipei County Government to provide disadvantaged and low-income groups with low-interest employment loans.
PHOTO: CHEN CHENG-CHANG, TAIPEI TIMES
The officials wanted to find out if a similar scheme could work for disadvantaged or low-income groups in Taipei and if so, to provide them with similar loans.
A percentage of the proceeds from lottery sales goes to an employment subsidy account that pays out to disadvantaged vendors. Attendees yesterday attributed what they called a "retrogression" of the business to several factors.
Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), secretary-general of the Coalition for the Handicapped and Disabled (殘障福利聯盟), said the swelling number of vendors was partly to blame.
"There are a total of 50,000 vendors -- legal and illegal -- in the market islandwide, 10 times more than there were when it [the lottery] started six months ago. How do you expect us to compete?" Wang said.
He also said he had doubts about the point of the lottery. He said that the government could be seen as taking advantage of the less well-off, by getting these people to raise funds, but not paying those funds out.
"We don't mind if we benefit from it, but we don't," Wang said. "We see the government is not doing a good job in cracking down on illegal vendors or in improving the worsening business."
Su Chih-wen (
"We simply cannot afford loan applications because we don't have any collateral to begin with," he said. "Why doesn't the city channel disabled welfare funds to us individually instead of to groups like it's doing now?"
Yang Chin-chung (
"There are no scratch prizes any more and the winning rate has been changed from 40 percent to 20 percent for no reason. I suggest to have more small winning prizes, plus one big prize to attract more business," he said.
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