The Youth and Sports Ministry has said it has paid off the arrears of the Indonesian Anti-Doping Agency (LADI) due to the Qatar Anti-Doping Lab (ADL).
This has been done with the aim of freeing Indonesia from sanctions imposed by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), it explained.
The arrears amounted to US$21,220 – equivalent to approximately Rp300 million — and had accrued since 2017, it informed.
“It was just discovered by the new LADI management while reviewing the memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the agencies,” deputy chairman of LADI, Rheza Maulana, stated in a written statement received by Antara here on Friday.
The decision on the payment was taken during a coordination meeting held by the agency on Thursday with a number of stakeholders, including the ministry, he said.
However, although the arrears were paid, the ministry will still investigate the incident to find out the responsible party, he asserted.
In addition, the ministry has also requested more details on the letters and electronic mails sent by WADA to LADI for resolving the agency’s pending matters as soon as possible, he informed.
Earlier, secretary general of the Indonesian Olympic Committee (KOI), Ferry J Kono, had said that according to the current investigation, there were 24 pending matters that had to be settled by LADI soon, including the arrears payment.
Kono is one of the members of the WADA Sanctions Revocation Acceleration Task Force established by Youth and Sports Minister Zainudin Amali on Monday.
“Generally, they are administrative and technical matters. Hence, we encourage LADI to resolve them to obtain its compliance status as soon as possible,” Kono said in a KOI press release issued on Thursday.
Since it is an urgent situation, the government has agreed to pay the arrears first, while the investigation continues and LADI completes other formalities, he added.
Currently, Indonesia does not have any anti-doping laboratory that meets WADA’s standards, thus the country has to send its samples abroad, including to Qatar.
Source: Antara News