Money is the panacea for sports complaints
Money is the panacea for sports complaints
JAKARTA (JP): Money, it seems, is now believed by the Indonesian sports authorities to be the elixir and tonic for the many ailments befalling the country's sports.
This has been made much of in particular since the unexpected, painful loss of Indonesia's long-standing Southeast Asian Games dominance to Thailand at the 18th SEA Games in Chiang Mai, Thailand, last month.
Setia Novanto, treasurer of the National Sports Council (KONI), reiterated what Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports Hayono Isman had said that it was money which played a pivotal role in Thailand's SEA Games success.
"Thailand spent around Rp 1.2 to 1.8 trillion to train their athletes for the Games, while we spent just Rp 13 billion," Novanto told The Jakarta Post during a break of KONI's plenary congress which ended on Tuesday.
Hayono on Monday said that Indonesia's flop in Chiang Mai was "understandable given the different amounts of money the two countries had spent in preparing their athletes."
A total of 121 representatives of all provincial sports bodies, sports and sports-related organizations under KONI supervision attended the annual congress.
In its fund-raising proposal, the congress among other things agreed that levying more tax on cigarettes would be appropriate as a means to increase sports funding and at the same time discourage smokers.
Novanto said that for the 19th SEA Games, to which Jakarta will play host next year, KONI will still have to rely on its special staff for funds. The staff, placed directly under KONI chairman Wismoyo Arismunandar, consists of the country's most prominent tycoons.
The other financial sources will include Jaspora, a new sports fund-raising concept introduced by Hayono recently. Under the scheme, the government will take three to five percent of money spent on the country's advertising expenditure to cover most of KONI's money-hungry programs.
"We need a body to implement Jaspora. Discussions on setting up the body are still going on," Novanto said. Yet, even if Jaspora goes into action, Novanto added, "KONI will be still in need of financial aid from its special staff because this would be good for their image and help activate the country's economy."
From its special staff, KONI acquired Rp 13 billion to finance the preparations for the 18th SEA Games two months before the Games began on Dec. 9. Soon after the Games were over on Dec. 17, KONI turned to its special staff again, asking them to pay for the bonuses KONI had promised to its athletes who won medals at the Games.
Novanto added that the bonuses in question, in the form of insurance policy, will be formally given on Feb. 1.
In the future, each member of the staff will be appointed as financier for a certain sport. Thus, they will be responsible for providing bonuses to medal-winning athletes of the respective sport under their care, Novanto said.
Many worry that if KONI maintains the habit of exploiting its special staff, the staff will soon suffer from donation fatigue.
Novanto said that Jaspora and the other forms of partnership with the business community will hopefully relieve the special staff's burden. Moreover there are strong indications that the government may be ready to turn its current priority of alleviating poverty into a priority for sports development in ten years' time, as Hayono earlier also said. "This will certainly help reduce our dependence on donors," Novanto said.
Despite the need for more and more money, however, Novanto said that accurate accounts are needed to tell how much money is really needed by each sports organization or each provincial chapter under KONI for the training programs of their athletes. "Thus, the amounts needed for so-and-so sports projects are still based on rough estimates, for example, the Rp 50 billion a year which the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports estimates for training the national athletes." (arf)