Accountability Is A Priority For Central KONI

JAKARTA - The legal case related to the alleged misuse of government aid funds to the Central Indonesian National Sports Committee (KONI) for the 2015-2019 term is still ongoing despite the change in the management of the Central KONI for the 2019-2023 term led by General Chair Marciano Norman.

The case is the fiscal year 2016, 2017 and 2018. In other words, it happened before the 2019-2023 KONI management was inaugurated and confirmed on August 1, 2019.

Responding to the case, Marciano Norman explained that he is working hard to improve the accountability and transparency of KONI and its members.

"The challenge is to restore public trust in KONI, KONI's accountability is at stake," he said, quoted from a written statement, June 23.

"At present KONI, we really respect the law, we have changed, we can be responsible for that," he continued.

Even though it didn't happen during its tenure, the Central KONI must cooperate with law enforcement.

“We once had an audience with the Attorney General and explained that KONI would be very willing to support the apparatus for smooth law enforcement. Whatever they ask for, as long as it is within our scope, we will provide the maximum support possible," Marciano explained.

Marciano leads the Central KONI as an institution that upholds and obeys the law so that information and data needs related to legal issues needed by the apparatus are always met. One example is assisting in coordinating the investigation process of 226 witnesses from around 47 sports for filling in the BPK's Minutes of Request for Information (BAPK). The witnesses used to be participants in activities that were abused by unscrupulous persons.

The activities in question are coordination meetings on Supervision and Reporting on the Acceleration of Performance Improvement Programs for Sports Branches and Budget Facilities towards the 2018 Asian Games as well as coordination meetings and synchronization of the Implementation of Presidential Regulation 95 of 2017 concerning Improvement of National Sports Achievements,

Of course, the Central KONI also facilitated them, especially this year the athletes will face various national and international single/multi events, they must concentrate on preparing themselves to make Indonesia proud.

The existence of sports achievement organizations must support athletes to achieve international sporting achievements, instead of involving them in legal cases.

Evaluation and anticipation steps are needed even for all members of the Central KONI. The case of assigning a suspect to the General Chair of the South Tangerang KONI who is suspected of misusing grant funds on June 10 is unfortunate.

In the future, the Central KONI will provide guidelines that can be used as a reference for grants from the government. The Central KONI management is currently preparing the guidelines and it is expected to be completed in July. “They must master the mechanism for receiving and being accountable for funds from the government. If there are still irregularities caused by administrative errors, we will help, "said the General Chairperson of the Central KONI.

"But if the perpetrator has bad intentions, let it be resolved in court," he continued, stressing that someone wanted to take advantage of sporting achievements

"Grant funds given by the government to the Central KONI, then the APBD given to the Provincial KONI and Regency/Municipal KONI really have to be guarded together so as not to cause problems in the future. We, people in sports, make sacrifices for sports achievements in Indonesia, don't be the ones who bring up financial problems," he said.

Regarding the legal issues of the Central KONI which are still often discussed, the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) has issued a recommendation. The majority of BPK's recommendations out of a total of 13 recommendations, as many as 11 are based on the 2016 and 2017 Fiscal Years. Only 4 of the recommendations are still unfinished. While 2 recommendations from the 2018 Fiscal Year, only 1 has not been completed.

Almost all of them have not been completed because there are no documents related to legal cases. The reason is, when there was a transition from the Central KONI for the 2015-2019 service period to the 2019-2023 service period, there was no "End of Office Memory" report so that the required documents became an obstacle until now.

In addition, government funding support to the Central KONI that has not been distributed has nothing to do with cases that have been and have not been completed.

It is interesting again when discussing government funding assistance, Menpora Imam Nahrawi with number SS.9.17.3/MENPORA/IX/2019 has written to President Joko Widodo on September 17, 2019. One of the points is the desire of the Minister of Youth and Sports at that time to help accelerate the process of distributing government budgets to KONI by referring to the applicable regulations.

Unfortunately, there are regulatory constraints that will serve as guidelines. The first is Presidential Decree number 95 of 2017 concerning Improving National Sports Achievement which only regulates the distribution of budgets to the Main Organization of the Sports Branch and the National Paralympic Committee (NPC).

The second is still with Presidential Decree number 95 of 2017 which regulates KONI's duties to assist the Minister in terms of supervision and mentoring of talent development, supervision of the selection of prospective athletes and coaches who excel as well as supervision of high performance training. Unfortunately, KONI's rights are not regulated.