Opposition threatens cancelling current private lottery in favor of state-run company
TIRANA, June 25 – While the Albanian government is about to announce the winner of a 10-year licence on the first national lottery, the opposition Socialist Party has strongly opposed the process as corrupt and lacking transparency. With one year to go before the next general elections, opposition Socialist Party leader Edi Rama has threatened to cancel the lottery and make it a state-run lottery.
“This is an open criminal activity at the expense of the public interest. I want to make it clear that we will not recognize this lottery and will return this right to the public putting the lottery at the disposal of public interest. It is the public which through the state should benefit more,” said Rama who favours a state-run lottery.
Opposition Socialist Party MPs say government is awarding the licence for only 3 million euros at a time when its price is estimated at 100 million euros. A state monopoly of the national lottery means income for youth policies and promotion of employment, opposition MPs say.
However, government says it is committed to award the national licence and considers the tender whose winner has not been announced yet as transparent.
Prime Minister Sali Berisha says the tendering process has followed criteria set by the European and World Lottery Associations. “The golden criterion is the transparency licence which is a symbolic document these two centres issue only to companies which meet the criteria,” says Berisha.
Reacting to Rama’s claims, Berisha said the winning bidder would pay 10 percent in concession fee, 20 percent as VAT, 10 percent as profit tax, 10 percent as turnover tax, and give back 50 percent of the turnover to players.
“I invite the opposition to launch a parliamentary enquiry to make the transparency,” added Berisha.
Finance Minister Ridvan Bode says the price cannot be the only and key criterion to determine the winner. “The most important thing for the Finance Ministry was the selection of an operator with integrity able to meet the required technical and financial requirements,” said Finance Minister Ridvan Bode, adding that the national lotteries were a delicate activity targeted by organized crime and money laundering
Last week, Albania’s Finance Ministry opened bids to award a licence on Albania’s first national lottery amid accusations from Greek and Turkish companies claiming that the tender conditions had already predetermined the winner.
As expected, only two companies participated in the tender held June 20 after Greece’s Intralot and Turkey’s Inteltek withdrew from the race denouncing the qualification criteria.
The first offer came from the Austrian National Lottery, while the second came from a consortium of three companies, the Italian Lottomatica, the Cypriot GTech and the Czech Synot.
In a letter sent to Finance Minister Ridvan Bode, Constantinos Antonopoulos, Intralot’s director, denounced the qualification criteria set for the companies and the lack of a price tag which he said makes the tender more of a present rather than a competition for a higher price.”
“To our great surprise we realized that the evaluation and award criteria do not include the licence fee or any price element whatsoever but instead the fee is fixed at an unreasonably low level for such a promising asset, as evidenced in similar licence awards globally,” said Antonopoulos.
The winner of the 10-year licence, worth 500 million lek (USD 5 million), has to submit an application guarantee of Euro 3 million.
Based on a previous government decision, bidders must have 15 years of experience in gambling and 5 years of experience in organizing online lotteries.
Gambling is a booming business in Albania and varies from casinos to sports betting. Albania has one casino, more than 20 bookmakers, 22 companies that organize gambling games and nine offering lottery tickets. Thousands of betting shops are scattered across the country. A gambling law, which has been in force for the past two years, bans people under 18 from entering betting shops. Regardless, teenagers are often seen there.
An IMF report has identified illegal gambling establishments and exchange bureaus, as well as the vulnerabilities that relate to cross-border transportation of currency as illegal practices which put Albania at risk of money laundering activity.
