Southeast Asian Games consortium to submit audited report next month

JAKARTA (JP): The 19th SEA Games consortium hopes to submit its audited financial report by the end of next month.

The Games organizers' budget and promotion deputy, Enggartiasto Lukita, said yesterday that accountants were still auditing the report.

"The auditing has yet to finish but hopefully the public accountant can finish it by the end of December," he said.

The consortium undertook to provide Rp 105 billion (US$29 million) to stage the biennial event, which was staged from Oct. 11 to Oct. 19, and to finance the Indonesian contingent's preparation.

Some Rp 40 billion from the total budget was raised from the public by asking people to buy stickers when they paid their electricity, water and telephone bills.

The public also have to pay for stickers when they extend their driving licenses and pay for airplanes tickets.

The sticker scheme will expire on Dec. 31.

Enggartiasto said he did not want to give a temporary report because it might cause more problems.

The consortium had promised to submit the report, at the latest, by the end of this month. But State Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports Hayono Isman told House Commission VII for youth affairs and sports that the consortium could not provide the report on time because it had not finished it.

The consortium plans to publish the report in all newspapers and broadcast it on all TV channels.

Enggartiasto also suggested that the National Sports Council optimize links between private sector companies and sports organizations, especially to finance the 13th Asian Games preparations.

"Although most sports organizations have patrons, there are still some organizations which don't have any," he said.

Enggartiasto said companies would contribute some of their promotion budget to finance sports development.

"Promotion budgets usually contain an abundance of money and can be used to finance sports development," he said. (yan)