Sports ministry hailed, urged to improve sports

Eva C. Komandjaja, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Several national sports figures have applauded the reinstatement of the sports ministry, but cautioned that it was not guarantee that more attention would be paid to sports affairs.

President Susilo Bambang Yudoyono picked Adhyaksa Dault as State Minister of Youth and Sports in his new Cabinet for 2004- 2009 term announced on Thursday.

The fact that sports is merged with youth affairs as it had previously been before the ministry was disbanded in 2000, raised concern about possible partial treatment.

"We hope that the government will give a greater portion of attention to sports this time because the government used to focus more on youth affairs than sports," Djohar Arifin Hussein, the secretary-general of the National Sports Council (KONI) said.

Djohar did say, however that he was pleased with the decision to reinstate the ministry and hoped the government would focus on sports development.

"Sports needs more attention given it's part in building the nation's character," Djohar said.

The ministry is one of a number of Cabinet portfolios that the then-President Abdurrahman Wahid dropped in 2000.

Sports expert Mangombar Ferdinand Siregar said that the sports ministry was needed so there would be more government support in the area of sports development.

"Without support from the government, Indonesia will not be able to compete with other countries. We were lucky that we got one gold medal in the Olympic Games last August without any government support," Siregar said.

Indonesia sent nearly 40 athletes to the Athens Olympic and shuttler Taufik Hidayat was the only gold medalist.

Thailand, which has surpassed Indonesia and now is the dominant country in the Southeast Asian region, took home three golds. Malaysia and Vietnam have also improved greatly compared to Indonesia, which has been put down to Indonesia's weakening development due to lack of governmental support.

"Look at our neighboring countries, they all have a ministry of sports and their sports development programs are excellent. Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam all have such ministries, while we went backward instead by eliminating our sports ministry," Siregar added.

"It is good that our new government will set up the sports ministry, although it is merged with youth affairs. I'd love it if sports had its own ministry as youth affairs is often connected to politics," he said.

Indonesia's top tae kwon do athlete Juana Wangsa Putri said that sports achievement would largely depend upon how committed the government was to serious sports development programs.

"I hope that the existence of a sports ministry will help KONI elevate sports performance in this country, to point that we are able to compete internationally," he said.

Djohar said that the sports ministry would start earmarking more funding for the development program and building more sports facilities in outer provinces and schools.

Former world badminton champion Icuk Sugiarto said he had high expectations for the new ministry.

"We hope that we can get more support from the government to curb the large amount of bureaucratic red tape we have to work through just to hold a tournament," said Icuk, who is currently the badminton chief in charge of development affairs.