Lack of funds still a major problem for PON

JAKARTA (JP): The 14th National Games (PON), a sports extravaganza for Indonesia's 27 provinces, will be officially opened here tomorrow. Yet daunting funding problems remain.

The executive chairman of the organizers, R.S. Museno, revealed here last week that the organizing committee still faced a deficit of Rp 8 billion (US$3.4 million).

But Museno, who is also deputy Jakarta governor, is optimistic that the committee will find the Rp 28.5 billion it needs.

The organizers expect to receive Rp 3 billion from PT Citra Hasta Utama, the promoter of the event, and Rp 2 billion from ticket sales.

In addition to sponsorship and ticket sales, the organizer is raising funds from the public by selling "mandatory" PON coupons to users of public services.

The local administration is cooperating with various state- owned and local administration-owned firms, such as the electricity company PT PLN, water company PT PAM Jaya and telecommunication company PT Telkom, to sell PON coupons.

All city agencies are also obliged to sell PON coupons to people who apply for building permits from the city development supervision agency.

This has provoked complaints from many parties.

A public employee who requested anonymity, said that he was automatically charged Rp 2,000 for four coupons when he paid his monthly electricity bill.

Movie-goers have to pay Rp 100 per ticket in most of the theaters in the city.

A resident in Bintaro, South Jakarta, who also requested anonymity, complained that she had to pay Rp 2,000 when she was extending her car's police number.

"The government should tell the people about PON fund raising coupons, in newspapers or on TV if necessary," she said.

The administration explained earlier that Jakartans could refuse to pay for the coupons, but it urged residents to help make the upcoming National Games a success by purchasing the coupons.

The organizers appointed PT Citra Hasta Utama to raise the funds from the public. But by the end of August, the company still owed the organizers Rp 3 billion.

Sports observer Mangombar Ferdinand Siregar, a former secretary general of the National Sports Council, said he was ashamed to see that the main issue in the media was funding.

"What appears in newspapers and on TV is always funding. Nobody talks about athletic performance," he complained.

Timber baron Mohammad (Bob) Hasan, who is also chairman of the Indonesia Athletics Association, said that the organizing committee should have cooperated more closely with the private sector to raise the money.

After the closing of the 13th PON, he said, an organizing committee for the 14th PON should have been created so that it could have directly arranged who is responsible for issuing the rights for TV broadcasts, who is responsible for transportation, official drinks, or clothing.

The program should have been prepared two or three years before the event, so that the organizer could have promoted the event more effectively and received more funds from sponsors and broadcasting rights.

"Don't just ask for help when you hold sports events. It's embarrassing," Bob Hasan said.

Fritz E. Simanjuntak, deputy chairman of the National Sports Council for planning and budget, also said the organizer of the upcoming PON should have learned from the 13th PON in 1993, which managed to make a profit.

Jakarta governor at the time, Wiyogo Admodarminto, urged the private sector to help host the event. Wiyogo was inspired by the success of the Los Angeles Olympic Games of 1984.

Later he appointed the Matari advertising agency to promote the event, which only cost Rp 7.75 billion.

Matari was able to sell promotion packages for Rp 650 million each to sponsors, allowing them to use the mascot Bang Poni, a pony. From the 13 main sponsors, the agency was able to make a profit of Rp 11 billion.

"But everything must be transparent. If you make a profit, everybody should know exactly how much profit you have made," Fritz said.

Fritz said the PON is ripe for private sponsorship because it reaches people all over the country. However, as long as the members of the organizing committee still think and act as bureaucrats, it will remain difficult for them to make the event attractive to private sponsors.

Moreover, he continued, the 14th PON has not been prepared well enough. Only recently did the organizers approach potential sponsors.

"If you are a private firm, you need at least one year to prepare for such a large sponsorship," Fritz said.

May Foo Goh, a representative of Compact Computer Asia -- the main sponsor of the current PON's information system -- confirmed that her company was approached only recently.

"Because it is a nationwide event and important for the whole of Indonesia, and because Indonesia is one of our key countries, and because Indonesia buys a lot of our computers, we are associating ourselves with the event," Goh said.

Fritz, Bob Hasan and Siregar agreed that it is high time for Indonesia to involve the private sector in major sports events. Organizing committees should no longer rely on the government's financial aid, or public fund raising, they should make profit from the events instead.

However, as Siregar pointed out, in order to attract private firms to enter sports businesses, the sports themselves must be made saleable. (team)