Controversial Tapornas

Controversial Tapornas

From Media Indonesia

The debate on the issue of National Sports Achievements Savings (Tapornas) is heated again. Tapornas, introduced by Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports Hayono Isman, is a fund raising drive carried out to finance the national sports activities. The problem is that the minister needs a large amount of money to finance the sports activities and the government's fund allotted to this sector is limited. So efforts should be made to stimulate the community to keep aside a small percentage of their money to finance national sports.

Several fund raising schemes, including the SDSB lottery and Social Philanthropic Contribution with Prizes, have been tried. SDSB has already been banned because it was categorized as gambling which is forbidden by religion.

Some view Tapornas as very much like SDSB. To attract depositors, a portion of money obtained by the difference in interest rate is raffled. The bank account number that wins gets the prize. There is further concern that if the winning number is announced to public, people may then bet on predictions of the winning number. To avoid this, it is better that the organizer announces the name of the depositor instead of the number of the bank account. Then Tapornas (should it be implemented) will not become a source of gambling activities.

HIMAWAN ADI ATMAJA

Depok, West Java