News | Sunday, 14 December 2008

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Edwin Vassallo calls on Tonio Fenech to investigate Super 5

James Debono
“People are watching you”. This ominous warning to lotteries company Maltco came from none other than Nationalist backbencher Edwin Vassallo, the former parliamentary secretary, shortly after asking Finance Minister Tonio Fenech to investigate why the lottery prize tends to accumulate to record sums a few weeks before Christmas.
This year the prize money reached the sum of €725,000 (Lm315,217), and was only won last week after eight weeks which failed to produce a winner.
Last year, the prize money had reached the astronomic sum of €1,237,400 (Lm538,000) by December 9.
This year’s bumper prize was won a day after Vassallo asked his parliamentary question.
“This time round the prize did not reach last year’s levels and one can say that the trend was cut short; but one can still observe a trend towards higher prizes in the same period,” Vassallo told MaltaToday when contacted.
Although this year’s bumper prize coincided with the beginning of the Christmas shopping spree, the prize had also reached €500,000 in November.
The lottery frenzy is not going down well with businesses, which complain of falling sales as people spend their earnings on lottery tickets. Shopkeepers speaking to sister newspaper Illum referred to people who preferred spending on Super 5 than on commodities.
Last year even the Chamber of SMEs (GRTU) expressed its concern, complaining that people were spending more on lottery tickets than on buying goods and services, hurting sales in supermarkets, bars, restaurants, and household goods stores amongst others.
But Edwin Vassallo, formerly a champion of small business, made it clear that he was not raising this issue because it affected small businesses. “Big spending on lotteries affects people in their everyday lives. It only affects businesses indirectly because people have less money to spend.”

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