Darrell Greer
Northern News Services

Rankin Inlet (Jan 25/06) - A $10,000 discrepancy has led to the Rankin Inlet Minor Hockey Association (RIMHA) walking away from its retailer's licence for the lottery booth at the local Northern store.

RIMHA president Justin Merritt has confirmed the organization will give up the licence on Jan. 31.

Rankin Inlet Minor Hockey Association president Justin Merritt has guaranteed the financial books of the hockey association are in order. - Darrell Greer/NNSL photo

Merritt has notified the Sport North Lottery Authority (SNLA), Nunavut government and Northern store of the decision.

The authority, in conjunction with the Western Canada Lottery Corp., handles lottery terminals in Nunavut and the NWT for the territorial governments.

The association is walking away from about $30,000 annually from five per cent of sales, two per cent of winning redemptions, and monies from the grant-in-aid program - a pot of money set aside by the territorial governments to be divided among lottery retailers.

The money is pro-rated based on a percentage of sales.

Merritt said his group should have collected about $12,000 in commissions from sales at the Northern store during the past year, but only took in $2,000.

Merritt cannot account for the missing $10,000, but said it wasn't misplaced by the RIMHA.

"There's really only two explanations here," stressed Merritt.

"I can guarantee the money is not missing from my end and the RIMHA books are open to any government agency that wants to audit our minor hockey association."

The arrangement between the RIMHA and the Northern store is complicated.

Although the booth is run out of the Northern store, the licence is held by the RIMHA, which makes it responsible for setting up a bank account, paying for the tickets as they're purchased and ensuring it gets its percentage of the profits.

The Northern store has been taking care of all those responsibilities and paying staff wages.

Merritt said problems started to surface about a year ago when the RIMHA noticed a downward trend in the money it receives.

"Things got progressively worse during the past few months, until it reached the point where minor hockey would have to step in and run the administrative side of the program if the Northern store couldn't guarantee the losses that were occurring.

"We'd have to be there every night to count tickets and balance the books and we don't have enough volunteers for that.

"We appreciate all Northern has done for us in the past, but this went bad.

"When they couldn't guarantee any losses, we had no choice but to walk away."

Gary Brennan is a finance officer with the SNLA. He said the SNLA has no indication of missing money except for Merritt's allegations.

"We haven't seen any financial statements, ledgers or bank account information that shows what they should have received or have been receiving," said Brennan.

"Since no official complaint has been filed, as far as Sport North Lotteries is concerned, there are no missing monies.

"Should an official complaint be filed, I would contact the Western Canada Lottery Corp. and it would follow whatever procedures are in place for such matters."

Brennan said the RIMHA has not lived up to any of the responsibilities of a licensed retailer other than to accept the actual licence and the profits that come with it.

He said the Northern has handled everything else for the past nine years.

"Now they (RIMHA) say they're not making as much money as in the past.

"Well, they should know how much they're making because an invoice is printed every day and a summary done every week.

"All they have to do is go and collect it.

"If there's been any money going missing, someone should have picked it up long before it reached $10,000."

Rankin Inlet Northern store manager Ken Davidson said the situation is being looked into.

He said the problem may have stemmed from the way the RIMHA moved money between different bank accounts.

"I'm not saying anybody stole anything, but until we get into what our girls were doing here and actually see the whole financial picture of the past year, we don't really know if there's money missing or not," said Davidson.

"My problem is why they didn't say anything sooner if they had a problem.

"The process was not looked after the way it should have been by minor hockey.

"That's a significant amount of money and if minor hockey files an official complaint, I hope the money is found through an error and the lottery corporation looks into the matter thoroughly."