City Mall plays hide and seek in car promotion: Fails to handover a car to winner

City (Mall) Supermarket in Lilongwe is playing hide and seek in its Easter-Win-Big-Win a car, as it is refusing to handover grand prize Nissan Tilda to the winner Robert Mwanamanga, a civil servant residing in Area 49 in Lilongwe.

The shopping mall conducted win-big-win a car-promotional bonanza on 3rd May 2017 from 7:30 PM, at a function which took place at City Supermarket, but up to now it is failing to honour its promise to handover the car to the overall winner.

Also present during the draw were National Lotteries Board (NLB) officials, who have mandate to regulate and ensure fairness in lotteries and competitions in Malawi and  a Mr Chikoko represented  the board.

However, all prize winners received their prizes but for no apparent reasons City Mall is refusing to hand over the vehicle to Mwanamanga, prompting people speculate that City Mall is playing hide and seek to make the 60-day wait period for lotteries elapse so as to use the vehicle again in its future competitions thereby making extra gains at the expense of duping unsuspecting Malawians.

Some of the winners  received their prizes. For instance, Mr. Musopole- won a kettle, Rose Ayieta went away with a coffee maker, Samantha Magwira won a breakfast pack,and  Jones Nyasulu won a cooker.

When contacted by Nyasa Times, Mwanamanga confirmed that up todate he has  not been given the car despite being declared the ultimate winner during the day of the event.

“City Mall promised that the winner will be given the vehicle once he unveils himself at City Mall within 14 working days. I  was informed  of my luck the following day on 4th May 2017 in the morning after receiving the news through phone calls from City Mall, friends among many well-wishers including the media that graced the occasion a night before,” said Mwanamanga.

Actually, City Mall Management were supposed to handover the  vehicle to the winner on Saturday, 6th May 2017 as they indicated to him when he met them, but to Mwanamanga’s surprise, when  he  went there with his family and friends to officially receive the vehicle as promised, City Mall changed tunes saying they were not obliged to give the winner the vehicle saying that they are still working on logistical arrangements to smoothen the car transfer.

The lucky winner is hoping that the organizers will do the right thing so as to ensure that the trust Malawian buyers have in lotteries and competition is not eroded.

Close sources to the winner disclosed that “The shop Management started pulling tricks to keep Mr. Mwanamanga  at ease promising to handover  the vehicle in the same week, but they kept  changing  tunes, one lie after another that the event was marred by irregularities which strangely were never cited to the unsuspecting public during the event,” he said.

Nyasa Times can confirm that during the draw, which was attended by various media organizations, Mwanamanga was announced as the overall winner and their excitement and jubilations from on-lookers present upon City Mall and NLB announcing the news.

A reliable source from City Mall, who opted for anonymity confided with Nyasa Times that City Mall and Lotteries Board have connived to give the vehicle to the disqualified ticket of the Chinese to cover up their irregularities and negligence despite fully knowing that they indicated to Malawians that the Chinese was disqualified due to inconsistent details and that the final winner was Mwanamanga whose ticket was picked by the guest of honour, the Malawian celebrated Prophet Shepherd Bushiri.

Various Malawians have expressed concern  in how City Mall and  Lotteries Board are handling the matter.

John Seka, a Lilongwe residence said City Mall is being ungrateful to Malawians as conducting such events has many advantages including increased sales and tax exemptions.

“City Mall and Lotteries Board ought to sort their negligence among themselves rather than punishing innocent Malawians by giving them false hopes which may ultimately have serious psychological trauma to the declared winner,” he said.

Recently, City Mall  changed tunes again by blaming the Lotteries Board that they have instructed them to give the vehicle to the disqualified ticket prompting people to speculate that the event seems to be marred by some trickery while others suspect that the Lotteries Board representative for the event seem to be having sinister motives with City Mall .

It appears that City Mall is playing tricks to deceive Malawians and people have expressed concern on how Malawians are increasingly being cheated in such competitions which instead only benefit the organizers through increased sales and tax exemptions at the expense of cheating Malawians.

On the other hand, people are increasingly becoming concerned  with the way the Lotteries Board is working in these matters  considering that they are supposed to ensure there is fairness in such competitions but instead they seem to be conniving with traders to dupe unsuspecting Malawians.

Some quarters of the society are urging the Competition and Fair Trade Commission of Malawi, an agency that regulates and promotes fairness in how firms conduct themselves to ensure that Malawians are not being duped in these competitions by taking to task crooked business people flouting competition and lotteries laws and further probe on fellow government agencies like the NLB who seem to be sidestepping laws that govern them by conniving with fraudulent traders in such competitions.

To enter the competition one had to buy goods in City Supermarket of more than K10, 000 and thousands of receipts were submitted by numerous buyers at City Mall.

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