Sports officials still in the dark about autonomy

Sports officials still in the dark about autonomy

JAKARTA (JP): As regional autonomy is underway nationwide,
many sports officials, as with their colleagues in other fields,
still have no idea about the concept of autonomy nor its
prospects.

Representatives from the National Sports Council (KONI)
provincial branches said at the sidelines of a KONI plenary
meeting on Wednesday that they must study the law carefully as
there have been no special guidelines issued for each province
and regency regarding sports development.

Many are still guessing at what action should be taken with
regards to the provincial allocation fund as the Home Affairs and
Regional Autonomy Minister Surjadi Soedirdja announced on Tuesday
that each province, regency and mayoralty could take a portion of
their provincial allocation fund to improve sports development.

"Regional autonomy is being discussed nationwide but the
details of the constitution is not clear to me. We'll study it
later," said Errom Romli, chairman of KONI's West Java branch.

He expressed doubts about whether the authority could provide
the budget as the provincial allocation fund would largely be
consumed by civil servants' salaries.

"The fact is that the fund is spent for civil servants'
salaries. The amount of money will not change much but provinces
will receive less as they have to now share it with regencies and
mayoralties," he said.

But Errom said that sport would receive a larger amount of
cash from the provincial budget.

"The province will receive more money from taxes, which used
to be paid to central government. This year, for example, we
might receive about Rp 5 billion (US$530,000) from the proposed
Rp 6 billion. Previously, we were only getting between Rp 700 to
Rp 800 million," he said.

Sutardiono, executive director of KONI's Jakarta branch, said
he would have to observe the autonomy law before deciding the
future of sports development in the capital.

"We are all unclear although Pak Surjadi has told us the
outline. KONI's Jakarta branch might need to review its statute
and household budget, particularly in talentscouting and training
programs for athletes, which will focus on regencies or
mayoralties rather than the province."

He said Jakarta's branch received financial support annually
from the city budget, but he doubted if Jakarta would still
support its five mayoralties which would need to seek their own
sponsorships.

Ferdiansyah, a member of the House's Commission VI for Human
Resources and Religious Affairs, said that many legislators did
not even understand the regional autonomy law.

"We don't understand 100 percent of what the government wants
to achieve by giving greater autonomy to the regions. We plan to
invite those people who are involved in the making of the
regional autonomy draft."

He also said that the government should make it clear on the
allocation of budget for sports development.

"There is no clarity in the budget allocation provision for
sports development. There should be some preliminary concept
beforehand, for example, the government will give one percent of
the state budget to finance sports development. This concept
should be flexible in its application," he said.

Surjadi said on Tuesday that the central government shouldered
a responsibility to develop national sports as stipulated in
Government Regulation No. 25/2000 including providing sports
facilities, encouraging sports communities and helping KONI
decide on the standards of sports competed at national and
international levels. (ivy)