Sports Minister to Consider Restructuring Sub-Agencies After Dismal SEA Games Performance
Jakarta. Sports Minister Imam Nahrawi is considering restructuring ministry operations and sub-agencies after a thorough evaluation following Indonesia's terrible performance at the 2017 SEA Games in Malaysia last week.
The Southeast Asian country finished the competition in fifth place, bringing home only 38 gold medals, the lowest number of prizes Indonesia won in a single SEA Games since its first in 1977.
Imam offered an apology for the country's performance at this year's Games and took a large portion of the responsibility for the country's lackluster performance.
The Ministry of Sports heads a sub-agency, known as Satlak Prima, or a high-performance task force, which specifically trains elite athletes to give top performances at international sporting events.
However, Imam recently said that several sub-agencies under the ministry overlap one another, causing confusion which ultimately harms the performance of training athletes. The minister plans to re-evaluate the ultimate effectiveness of sub-agencies, including the Indonesian National Sports Committee (KONI) and the Indonesian Olympic Committee (KOI), as well as Satlak Prima.
Imam admits that he does not have a clear understanding of the specific roles those agencies play, and how they differ.
"So far, I have not reached a final decision to dismiss any agency, including Satlak Prima. All employees will be evaluated, including Sports Ministry employees. If those institutions have overlapped tasks, we'll make a cut off," Imam said on Monday (04/09).
"There will be a big change," he added.
"Sports often heavily focus on high-performance in Indonesia, where participation and sport development have been neglected for years, contrary to what has been happening in Australia and the United Kingdom, for example," Irman Jayawardhana, a sport and event management lecturer at Prasetiya Mulya University, told the Jakarta Globe on Tuesday.
"We've yet to finish evaluating our performance at the SEA Games with President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo and the Coordinating Ministry for Human Resources Development and Culture," Imam added.
"This is the time to make sports a national priority, in which other stakeholders should offer more support, including other ministries."
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