Fund woes won't stop events

Fund woes won't stop events

JAKARTA (JP): State Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports
Mahadi Sinambela said on Monday that financial shortages would
not prevent Indonesia from participating in regional and
international events.

He said that Indonesia would compete in the 2001 Southeast
Asian (SEA) Games in Kuala Lumpur although the National Sports
Council (KONI) currently had no money in its pocket to fund the
training.

"We have to participate in the SEA Games because we want to
maintain friendship with other countries. If we don't have money
to buy airplane tickets, we can travel by sea," he said.

He said that his office was still considering ways to raise
funds for sports training.

"The main thing is that the money will come from the people,"
he said.

He also said that he had sent a proposal on raising funds from
cigarette taxes to the Finance Ministry. He said that the
ministry had yet to give its response.

"The basic idea of raising funds from cigarette taxes is
collecting money from smokers to finance the non-smokers'
activities. We want to popularize this, but we are waiting for
the response from the finance ministry," he said.

He remained cool towards objection from cigarette companies
over his idea.

"We collect money from consumers, not the manufacturers. I
told you that we want to collect the people's money," he said.

He also said that he had not suggested to President
Abdurrahman Wahid to enact the tax reduction policy, in which
companies that finance sports would receive tax reductions.

"Currently, some companies have allocated some money from
their business promotion budgets to finance sports. I don't think
we should reduce their taxes as a result of contributing to
sports," he said.(ivy)