With many not able to ac­cess grants or as­sis­tance dur­ing the sec­ond lock­down of the pan­dem­ic, close to 150 lot­to agents, who were caught in a fi­nan­cial bind, utilised $6 mil­lion of the Na­tion­al Lot­ter­ies Con­trol Board (NL­CB) funds to pay their rents, bills, loans and sus­tained them­selves.

The group of 150 agents is on­ly a frac­tion of 1,200 who will not be re­open­ing to­day, as NL­CB has tak­en the de­ci­sion to de­ac­ti­vate their ma­chines un­til they can re­pay the out­stand­ing sum.

Yes­ter­day, chair­man of the Lot­to Agents’ Com­mit­tee Dean Per­sad plead­ed with NL­CB’s chair­man Eu­stace Nan­cis to come to a com­prise by re­ac­ti­vat­ing the ma­chines and al­low­ing the agents to sign a pay­ment plan to re­pay NL­CB.

But Nan­cis, in a tele­phone in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, said the NL­CB was not a “slush fund” and they have al­ready tak­en le­gal ac­tion against a few of the agents to re­cov­er the Gov­ern­ment’s mon­ey.

In May, Gov­ern­ment shut down all NL­CB’s op­er­a­tions which threw 2,400 op­er­a­tors and agents on the bread­line.

“I must tell you that dur­ing the lock­down some agents used the mon­ey they were sup­posed to de­posit to NL­CB be­cause of the dire straights that they were in. In some cas­es the last de­posit be­fore the shut down those agents would have had to utilise that for their own pur­pose,” Per­sad ad­mit­ted yes­ter­day in a tele­phone in­ter­view.

Per­sad said from his cal­cu­la­tions, 150 of the agents used NL­CB’s mon­ey to sus­tain them­selves and pay their rent, bills and loans.

He es­ti­mat­ed each agent spent be­tween “$35,000 to $40,000” which to­talled $6 mil­lion.

The $6 mil­lion was from bets placed by pun­ters on NL­CB on­line games such as Play Whe, Pick 2, Pick 4, Cash Pot and Lot­to Plus.

Util­i­ty bills are al­so paid at the ter­mi­nals.

Per­sad ad­mit­ted the $6 mil­lion was a large fig­ure.

“It is. The agents used the mon­ey to car­ry them through for the three months. The lock­down brought un­told hard­ship to them. Yes, they mis­ap­pro­pri­at­ed your funds and we are will­ing to make an agree­ment to pay these funds. We can on­ly pay these funds if we are able to op­er­ate the ma­chines.”

Per­sad said many of the agents ar­gued they had no choice but to spend NL­CB’s funds to keep them go­ing.

“We have a lot of agents who de­pend sole­ly on the op­er­a­tions of the ma­chines for sur­vival. But we are hop­ing that good sense would pre­vail and both sides so we can come to an am­i­ca­ble set­tle­ment.”

Per­sad said many of the agents put for­ward the ar­gu­ment that they paid their rent at malls and bars which re­main closed.

“That was our re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to safe­guard NL­CB’s ma­chines while the coun­try is on lock­down.”

He said the agents and op­er­a­tors had asked for in­come sup­port and salary re­lief grants from the Gov­ern­ment to help them make ends meet but they were de­nied fund­ing.

He said if NL­CB con­tin­ues to keep the ma­chines in­op­er­a­ble “it would end up in a loss-loss sit­u­a­tion on both sides. There is no wis­dom in keep­ing the ma­chines closed. NL­CB will lose be­tween $25,000 to $40,000 per week from one agent.”

If the agents are un­able to pay, Per­sad said, the ma­chines will be for­feit­ed and le­gal ac­tion can be tak­en against them.

“NL­CB can levy on the agents to re­cov­er their loss­es. We don’t want it to end this way. The agents are will­ing to re­pay the mon­ey...all we are ask­ing NL­CB is re­ac­tive the ma­chines. But we are in a re­al quandary with NL­CB and this is what we are fight­ing against.”

Per­sad said he wrote Nan­cis plead­ing for “a mid­dle ground” but got no re­sponse.

Per­sad said on­ly 50 per cent of the agents will re­open to­day.

NL­CB Chair­man: “Pay us our mon­ey”

Nan­cis said NL­CB will have an ur­gent meet­ing to dis­cuss the mat­ter.

Go­ing on the $6 mil­lion fig­ure Per­sad pro­vid­ed, Nan­cis said, “you telling me I give you $6 mil­lion to do what you have to do.”

He called on the agents to “put their act to­geth­er.”

On a week­ly ba­sis, Nan­cis said an agent makes an av­er­age of $4,000 based on an eight to ten per cent com­mis­sion paid by NL­CB

While ad­mit­ting he was aware of the sit­u­a­tion, Nan­cis said, “they have tak­en mon­ey that does not be­long to them. You col­lect­ed our mon­ey in good faith then pay us our mon­ey in good faith.”

He said these agents prob­a­bly took the mon­ey to fund oth­er busi­ness­es.

Re­gard­ing op­er­a­tors and agents not re­ceiv­ing grants, Nan­cis said “grants are not a right. I want to make it abun­dant­ly clear. One has to re­mem­ber these are busi­ness peo­ple. I don’t think we will open up any door for grants. You went in­to busi­ness to make mon­ey.”

Nan­cis won­dered if these agents did not put aside mon­ey for a rainy day.

“Be­fore the pan­dem­ic, they were mak­ing mon­ey. We can’t open a Pan­do­ra’s box. Peo­ple have to start to work on their own and take the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty that if they run a small busi­ness you try to man­age your busi­ness.”

He said agents who mis­man­age NL­CB’s mon­ey are put on a plan to re­pay.

“They get an op­por­tu­ni­ty to use State funds...NL­CB mon­ey and then I have to put you back on a plan to get back my own mon­ey when you are sup­posed to pay me on a week­ly ba­sis by a cer­tain time.”

Asked if the last re­sort was tak­ing the agents to court, Nan­cis said, “I think we def­i­nite­ly...we have put some of them un­der ...we have sent some of them (agents) to the le­gal de­part­ment and we will take those op­tions to re­tain out mon­ey back.”

Pressed if this mea­sure was a bit harsh at this time, Nan­cis said, “it (mon­ey) is not yours. What is go­ing to hap­pen with our rev­enue?”

Promis­ing to help, Nan­cis said they will not paint every­one with the same brush.

He said NL­CB’s rev­enue for the month is rough­ly $240 mil­lion.

A press re­lease from the Health Min­istry yes­ter­day stat­ed the op­er­a­tions of NL­CB will be al­lowed on a tem­po­rary ba­sis.