Hot 97.1 FM managing director and radio commentator Luke Boyea has delivered a scathing condemnation of the National Lotteries Authority (NLA), describing the transition of Luann Hadaway from board chairperson to general manager as “farcical,” “outrageous,” and “the definition of corruption.”
Speaking on Hot 97.1’s morning broadcast, Boyea reacted to a One News report confirming that Hadaway transitioned from chairing the NLA board to assuming the role of general manager of the state-owned institution, effective November 2, 2026, pursuant to a board memorandum.
Boyea blasted the move as an egregious breach of corporate governance, transparency, and public trust, warning that allowing high-ranking board officials to appoint themselves to lucrative executive posts mimics small-scale corner-shop operations rather than modern democratic institutions.
Addressing listeners, Boyea expressed disbelief that such a maneuver could occur within one of the state’s most financially critical entities without widespread public outcry.
“This is outrageous in my view. This is one of these things which will go under the radar, but is outrageous,” Boyea stated. “Moving from being the chairperson of the board to appointing yourself as a general manager… This is farcical if it wasn’t so important. And how people are just brushing this off as normal is beyond me. This is the definition of corruption.”
Boyea stressed that the National Lottery is the country’s third-largest revenue generator behind Inland Revenue and Customs. Given that state-sanctioned gambling involves enormous sums of public money, he argued that managing such funds demands rigorous regulatory compliance, unmatched ethical integrity, and transparent recruitment.
“You got to have a proper search. You got to go out there and search, probably on a region-wide basis,” Boyea asserted. “The lottery is an extremely important institution. Generates a lot of money. There’s a lot of scope for corruption. You have to have impeccable moral standards to run a lottery. You got to be qualified. Just appointing yourself… no review process, no nothing, just bam.”
Questioning the motivations behind the move, Boyea wondered aloud whether executive compensation and institutional perks drove the appointment.
“Maybe you saw the salary and you say, ‘Boy, I like that salary, and I saw the perks and I like the perks.’ But it doesn’t work like that. We are not a jokey society, surely,” Boyea remarked, comparing the administrative conduct to “mauby shop” or “mommy shop” management.
Boyea noted comments from listeners and pointed out that Hadaway had previously served as treasurer of the New Democratic Party (NDP) and had a background in banking. However, he maintained that regardless of political ties or past roles, executive leadership of a multi-million-dollar state corporation cannot simply be handed out internally without competitive evaluation.
