KUALA LUMPUR: The Youth and Sports Ministry wants national sports associations (NSAs) to be transparent in order to attract support from the public sector.
Sports Minister Hannah Yeoh said that NSAs rely on funds from the Finance Ministry but which cannot cover the expenses of all. Hence, different approaches are needed to boost their finances.
Yeoh pointed out that there are NSAs reluctant to expose their financial situation.
"It costs thousands of ringgit for NSAs to send athletes for exposure and training, it's not cheap especially for team events," said Yeoh.
"We have now created a payment method for NSAs which we had done with the National Sports Council (NSC), we give them one-off grants. The NSAs spend and report back to us, the condition is that the NSAs need to have a special bank account to receive the funds.
"But a lot of NSAs don't want to open their account, they are afraid that we will audit them, they are afraid we will know how much money they have.
"Transparency and support must be two ways. If you want me to support you, you need to come clean with how much money you have.
"I don't want NSAs to keep millions of ringgit but not spend it on the athletes... it can be a possibility right?
"I have to answer to Parliament on how I have spent the money. Everyone knows how much money NSC gets, but we don't know how much NSAs have... nobody knows."
Yeoh added that a good relationship with the Olympic Council of Malaysia (OCM) is needed to uplift NSAs governance.
"This is where I feel the engagement must continue and I have a good relationship with OCM president Tan Sri Norza Zakaria. He has always been for the good governance of the NSAs, it's something that I look forward to discussing with him to see how we can continuously uplift the standards of NSAs," she said.
"I believe when the public knows what NSAs are doing, their plans for the sports development, they will be willing to part with their money and will come to support."