Marciano Norman (JP/Wendra Ajistyatama)

Hundreds of employees of the National Sports Council (KONI) have been thrust into an unfortunate financial situation as they have not received their monthly salary since early this year, and they can only hope that newly elected chief Marciano Norman can end it.

As many as 104 KONI employees conveyed their disquiet over the issue to the Youth and Sports Ministry in May, before the election of the new KONI head.

Ministry secretary Gatot S. Dewa Broto met with representatives of the KONI employees but he could not promise to settle the problem by disbursing money from the ministry budget as it would violate regulations.

“There are 104 employees in total who have yet to receive their allowance. We haven’t been paid because our organization doesn’t have the money,” said Hariyanto, who works as an administration clerk for the council, as quoted by kompas.com.

One of the employees is former national boxer Ellyas Pical, who once was an International Boxing Federation (IBF) super flyweight champion.

With the delay in their salary payments, many employees are having financial difficulties, with some saying they have been unable to pay their electricity bill and mortgage. Some even said the financial problem had destroyed their marriages.

Aware of the difficulties faced by KONI’s employees, Marciano has decided to make this problem his priority while at the helm for the next four years.

“We can’t just ignore the fact that KONI as a sports body is troubled by financial problems from time to time. My priority is to solve the problems experienced by our employees who have not received their pay for the last seven months,” Marciano told The Jakarta Post in an exclusive interview on Monday.

He went on to say that he had met the employees when he took over from former head Tono Suratman, a retired Army major general. During the meeting, Marciano recounted that many of the employees were working a side job to meet their financial needs.

“Some work as motorcycle [ride-hailing] drivers. They told me they were willing to do anything as long as their children at home could eat and they could also meet other financial needs,” he said.

“I told them that until I could find the best solution to the problem, they should continue working their side jobs as I couldn’t promise anything at the moment,” he added.

The former State Intelligence Agency (BIN) head said he did not want a temporary solution by just disbursing some money to the employees, as the most important thing was to fix the root of the cause.

“One way is to restore KONI’s status as a working unit where it is possible to receive direct funding from the state budget. From there, [we can] allocate [some money] to uphold the employees’ rights,” he explained.

At the moment, KONI operates on a grant from the Youth and Sports Ministry.

Marciano said he would strive to conduct a meeting with related parties such as the Youth and Sports Ministry as well as the House of Representatives to discuss the issue further.

Sports observer Djoko Pekik Irianto said the new KONI head should have the ability to create healthy relations with other parties in order to generate income — remembering that it received a limited amount of money from the state budget.

“Collecting funds from outside of the government’s allocated budget [for KONI] goes back to the ability to synergize with them,” he told the Post.

“KONI must be able to encourage the government to push a regulation on corporate social responsibility programs from companies, [which forces them to] allocate some of [their] budget for sports development in the country.”

“In 2011, amid the preparations for the Southeast Asian Games, we succeeded in establishing partnerships with state-owned enterprises where they became a kind of foster father for sports federations. It worked well but then it stopped,” he added.

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