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)