(March 20, 2015) National Lottery officials arrested three weeks ago in connection with a 694,395 Br loss indicated on the audit report have been denied bail by court on March 9, 2015.

The arrest involved four officials and two people outside the National Lottery Administration (NLA). These included Teklu Weldetsadik, director of the Lottery License and Control Department; Dessie Dejene, operational coordinator, and Mekdes Gorfu, lottery distribution head officer, as well as Mekonen Wami, purchasing, finance and property administration director. The outsiders are people working as agents of the administration.

The arrest was made in connection with internal problems in the operation of the administration, Tewodros Neway, coordinator of advertisement and communication at NLA told Fortune. Tewodros declined to comment further on details of the allegations. However, the issue is related to millions of faulty lottery tickets printed for the Administration by an Indian company, Gobson, a source that requested anonymity, told Fortune.

The NLA is said to have found out last year that 2.6 million lottery tickets, out of a total of 52.5 million contracted to Gobson were faulty, leading to their collection from the market. Gobson, which had been doing the job for the lottery administration since 2009, had already collected the full payment of eight million Birr for the whole lot, according to the source.

NLA, as the only responsible body regulating overall lottery activities in the country, has registered 304 million Br from sales of 11 types of lottery tickets and commissions in the half fiscal year of 2014/15. The sum of 299.6 million Br was collected from sales while the remaining sum accrued from commission work in the same period.

As one of the bodies accountable to Ethiopian Revenue and Customs Authority (ERCA), the NLA has registered 63.5 million Br in net profits, representing 0.1pc share of the total amount of revenue collected by ERCA during the past half fiscal year. The administration has 67 branch offices and 90 agents across the country.

The Court adjourned the case until March 19, 2015, when it will hear the statement of defence by the defendants.