The corruption that has embroiled officials at the Youth and Sports Ministry indicates a sports management that lacks vision, sportsmanship and professionalism.
The weakness in its vision can be seen through many problems, ranging from poor sports development among children at an early age through to professional athletes. The number of activities undertaken to develop sports is also highly limited. Even in the most popular sport, like football, there is almost no regularity in coaching schedules and goals.
On Tuesday evening (12/18/2018), the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) named five of 12 people as suspects after investigating into alleged corruption in the ministry’s assistance funds for the Indonesian National Sports Committee (KONI). The five named suspects are: KONI secretary-general E.F. Hamidy and KONI treasurer John E. Awuy; and the ministry’s assistant for sports achievement improvement Mulyana, official in charge of commitment (PPK) Adhi Purnomo, and staff member Eko Triyanto.
Suspect E.F. Hamidy, for example, reportedly returned US$80,000 to former Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) chief auditor Ali Sadli in 2017. His decision to return the money was apparently connected to the audit result of the ministerial budget, particularly those related to KONI.
Indeed, the BPK issued “disclaimer” status for the ministry’s 2015 and 2016 financial reports. The ministry’s 2017 financial report showed slight improvement, as it received the “reasonable with exception” status during a routine audit.
Vice President Jusuf Kalla is optimistic that the corruption allegations involving sports ministry officials will not affect efforts to improve the performance of Indonesian athletes, as sports development in the country was progressing.
This optimism can be seen in the government’s continuing support for sports development. However, the situation on the ground is far from ideal. For example, compiling expenditure reports on specific sports of the Asian Games has not been easy, not to mention the national training camps for the 2019 SEA Games.
Financial management in sports must be addressed with all seriousness; otherwise, our sports achievements will remain stagnant. In fact, the government has disbursed a large amount of funding – through the state budget, state-owned enterprises and the private sector – to realize our goal of making many sports achievements.
Most sports administrators are still amateurs. Not only do they find it difficult (or unable to) to manage finances, they are also unable to determine a structured coaching system. We still have minimal professional coaches, so our athletes are rarely exposed to sports science for applying the scientific techniques in their professional careers.
The KPK’s arrest of the sports ministry officials is only the tip of the iceberg in national sports issues. It is strongly expected that all parties will participate in fixing this issue. We want to see our athletes appearing confident at every event, as they did in the 2018 Asian Games.