Wismoyo urges people not to exaggerate sticker issue

JAKARTA (JP): The National Sports Council's chairman, Wismoyo Arismunandar, has urged people not to exaggerate the controversy over the sale of stickers promoting the 19th Southeast Asian (SEA) Games.

Wismoyo, who is also chairman of the Games organizing committee, said Wednesday that there was no need to over expose the problem.

"We should not let such a small problem like sticker selling ruin the pattern and system we have set up to raise funds from the public to host the Games," he said.

The council is cooperating with a consortium, which is chaired by President Soeharto's son Bambang Trihatmodjo, to raise funds from the public by selling stickers to customers of state-owned companies PT Telkom, PLN and PAM.

Hotels, restaurants, recreational parks and airports across the country have been charging customers for stickers, sparking protests that customers were not given a chance to refuse buying the stickers.

Sixteen million of the 17.75 million stickers are sold for Rp 1,000 (41.7 U.S. cents) each, while the rest are sold for between Rp 2,500 and Rp 50,000 each.

The consortium hopes to raise Rp 35 billion from sticker sales.

"President Soeharto has urged the council to successfully host the biennial event and to take over the overall title, which was won by Thailand in 1995," he said.

But Wismoyo said the council could not raise all of the Rp 105 billion (US$43.75 million) needed to stage the event and groom athletes.

"Indonesian people still need a big budget to overcome poverty. So we ask the private sector, including the consortium, to provide the whole budget by selling stickers," he said.

"I think the manipulation is so small and should not be over exposed. I feel some people have their own interests in creating such an issue," he said.

"I will never take a cent of the SEA Games funds. All fund, which have been raised from the public, will be clearly accounted for." he said.

Wismoyo said the Rp 105 billion budget was small compared to the last Games, which was hosted by Chiang Mai, Thailand.

"Thailand spends $1 billion just grooming its athletes, while we only spend Rp 35 billion (US$14.6 million) to boost ours," he said.

The chairman of the ministry of tourism, post and telecommunication's Jakarta branch, Pidjo Basuki, said all PT Telkom costumers would not receive SEA Games stickers even though they had to pay for the stickers while paying their bills.

"In our meeting with the consortium and other departments under the ministry on May 6, we have agreed not to raise funds from telephone costumers by selling stickers," he said.

Costumers usually pay Rp 1,000 within their telephone bills and Rp 2,500 for cellular phone owners.

There are 1.6 million telephone costumers and 400,000 cellular phone owners in Jakarta. (yan)