By Abdulai Bayraytay in Freetown.
Mercury International, a gambling company operating in the West African state of Sierra Leone has been accused of duping its customers in order to avert bankruptcy declaration.
According to reliable inside Mercury International sources, the company went into losses in the months of September, October and November 2007 and consequently found it difficult to pay its winners on time.
In response to this, coupled with the threats of a sudden closure of the operations of the company, a senior management meeting held on November 13th, 2007 agreed that the Technical Engineer(Operations) for all Mercury Lotteries, Mr. Edward Bannister should “ensure that less winnings be recorded for the golden draw” in order for the company to recuperate its losses for it to continue its operations.
Reports further indicated that Mr. Edward Bannister failed to adhere to the memo put forward by senior management which eventually led to record winnings of over two hundred million leones in the history of the operations of the company. As a result, Mr. Bannister was accused of deliberately making the company incur losses.
As such, he was invited to the Criminal investigations Department (CID) in Freetown by Mercury International on allegations that he “manipulated” winnings for certain people. This angered many people, with one Alusine Kargbo, a frequent gambler, expressing his frustration this way: “If the operations manager is detained for several days for allegedly manipulating winnings for certain individuals, then it means management too has the ability to tamper and manipulate the machines in order to reduce winnings and maximize more profits”.
Authoritative sources further indicate that Mr. Bannister was squeezed at the CID at Government Wharf in order to determine whether a link existed between himself and the winners of the Thursday, November 29th, 2007 Golden Draw Number 20 so that the company could have reason not to effect payments.
“You Sierra Leoneans are criminals and bastards that is why this country is cursed and will ever remain poor. We are here to help you”, the Operations Manager Nayef Fawaz was quoted saying in anger and frustration.
Sources at the CID indicate that the company was coercing them to establish an inextricable link between the winners and the alleged machine manipulator. “But we just cannot find the link, and we are tired of these crazy Lebanese insults and directives in our country. Trust me, we are really under pressure”, a senior CID personnel who preferred anonymity lamented.
In an interview with the company’s legal counsel and its hired public relations officer cum assistant to the fraud investigation in the wake of the scandal, Martin Michaels and Rodney Michael respectively, they both denied having insulted the alleged winners, and that they are a legitimate company that would not try to influence the investigations into the alleged conspiracy.
“It is just fair that we have to investigate winnings in the event that there are concerns of conspiracy to defraud the company”, Rodney Michael maintained.
Meanwhile, the company has so far paid winners of the fifteen million leones and less while winners of the ten million and one hundred three million leones winnings are yet to be paid. As at press time, Mr. Bannister has been released on bail as investigations into the operations of Mercury International, a Lebanese and Israeli-owned gambling company in Sierra Leone, are underway.
Photo: Inspector General of Police Brima Acha Kamara.
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