Legislators back sports door prize scheme

Legislators back sports door prize scheme

Zakki Hakim, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The House of Representatives (DPR) expressed support on
Thursday for the National Sports Council (KONI) scheme in
conjunction with PT Metropolitan Magnum Indonesia (MMI) to hand
out door prizes at sporting events in a bid to attract more fans
and raise money for sports development.

However, several legislators asked the council to disseminate
information about the program thoroughly and make sure no
gambling of any form is involved.

Heri Akhmadi, deputy spokesperson for House Commission VI,
said that the commission appreciated KONI's effort in obtaining
an opportunity of private funding and advised the council to be
cautious in running the program.

It has been acknowledged that national sports programs need
much more money than they are getting at present, but the
government is unable to place a high priority on budget
allocations for sports, which caused the council to turn to
private funding, even though MMI will reportedly only contribute
5 percent of the profits to athletic development projects.

Heri said that private funding was often associated with
gambling, mainly because earlier programs such as Porkas and SDSB
(local lottery games) eventually were found to be forms of
gambling and only a small percentage was actually contributed to
sports development.

Heri said that if the program was not a form of gambling, then
it was the government's right to run the program and to convince
interest groups that were not yet convinced.

"The decision (to run the program) is in the hands of the
Minister of Social Affairs," Heri said while adding that
unfortunately that the ministry was not supervised by Commission
VI, which oversees religions, education, culture and tourism.

Heri said the commission would assist in promoting the program
by inviting the Indonesian Council of Ulemas (MUI) and other
groups that have expressed opposition, to hear their objections.

"Anyway, does every government action need MUI's consent? I
don't think so," stated Heri, a legislator from the Indonesian
Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) faction.

KONI chairman Agum Gumelar said during the hearing that he was
puzzled by the people's skepticism of the door prize program,
saying,"our biggest problem is hypocrisy."

He said that the program was to serve a bigger interest of the
nation, to improve the country's sports.

Last year KONI has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)
with MMI, a local company affiliated with Malaysian gaming
enterprise Magnum Corporation Berhad (MCB) to hold a door prize
game named the Sports and Social Welfare Fund Game.

The game has been controversial, but, to date, both KONI and
especially MMI, as the game operator, insisted that the program
was not gambling but failed to provide details on the game
mechanism.

Recently MMI announced that it would only earmark five percent
of total revenue to sports development, while 36 percent for the
operational costs.

In Thursday's hearing, the commission also praised the
national contingent's achievement in the 2003 Vietnam Southeast
Asian (SEA) Games and expressed its support for the 2006
Indonesia Rises program, a sports development plan to improve
local athletic quality ahead of the 2006 Asian Games in Doha,
Qatar.

The commission concluded that after the RI contingent finished
third with 55 golds after host Vietnam and Thailand was quite an
achievement considering that more than 60 percent of the squad
members were young inexperienced athletes.

Moreover, the commission advised KONI to promote the Indonesia
Rises program to get nation-wide support.

Lastly, the commission promised to prioritize the discussion
on the sports bill and deliberate it before its five-year term
ended in September.

During the hearing KONI also presented the progress of its
preparation for the Athens Olympics in August, the Thomas and
Uber Cups in May and the 16th National Games (PON) in September.