Financial shortage likely to hamper sports bill

JAKARTA (JP): For nearly a decade now, Indonesia's sporting community has been waiting for the government to issue a Sports Law. This remains a dream and will continue as such until members of the House of Representatives are motivated to undertake the initiative.

Unfortunately, legislators are not very familiar with sports development issues and are also facing financial impediments to drafting the bill and its subsequent enactment as law.

Ferdiansyah, a member of the House's Commission VI for Human Resources and Religious Affairs, told reporters on Thursday on the sidelines of a discussion on the sports bill, that legislators were now facing some restrictions in fulfilling the task.

"We do not have enough information on national sports so we will endeavor to gather as much data as possible from the National Sports Council (KONI), Bapopi (the Indonesian Professional Sports Association) and members of the sporting community in formulating the bill. We'll then initiate a discussion with the government before endorsing it into a law."

"Unfortunately, there is no special allocation to accommodate the legislator's initiative rights. It's different if the government handles the issue."

Under a House internal rule, the undertaking to make a draft must be sponsored by a minimum of 10 legislators from at least two factions.

Ferdiansyah said he was still unsure if the commission's members would back up the idea, but he urged sports organizations to increase legislators' awareness of their activities.

He expressed hope that the bill could be finalized before the plenary session in August.

"The bill might be finalized in August at the latest and then we can begin the discussions with the government, sports community and other House members in September. Hopefully, the bill can be endorsed by the end of this year."

Ferdiansyah was a keynote speaker in the discussion, along with political observer Andi Mallarangeng, former shuttler Ferry Sonneville, and director general of primary and secondary education of the National Education Ministry Indra Djati Sidi.

The seminar was aimed at collecting information as substance for the bill. KONI's legal commission will synthesize the information before submitting it to the House.

A member of KONI's legal commission, Cahyo Adi, said that the council also faced financial difficulties in communicating the ideas to 10 factions in the House.

"Socializing this idea to 10 factions will cost us a fortune. We need to do that because we want to gain support from members. We will be very grateful if the House can finish the sports bill by the end of 2001," he said.

KONI and the now-defunct office of State Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports had submitted the sports bill in the early 1990s to the State Secretariat, to be approved by former president Soeharto, before being brought into discussion with other bodies.

But the draft has been suspended at the State Secretariat until today. Therefore, KONI took the initiative and requested the House to fulfill the objective.

Speaking on KONI's future, Ferdiansyah said that the council was under supervision by another organization, along with other sports bodies. Cahyo Adi added that KONI needs to set up autonomous bodies in each regency to supervise sports development once the provinces established their autonomy status early this year.

Both agree that, in the long-term, KONI should only become a policy-making body and allow sports organizations under its supervision to manage sports development. (ivy)