PETALING JAYA: The government should remove political appointees and incompetent officials instead of axing 144 athletes from the National Sports Council’s (NSC), says former deputy youth and sports minister Steven Sim.
According to a Malaysiakini report, he also blasted Youth and Sports Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Faizal Azumu for failing to defend the interests of the athletes concerned.
“It is better to fire 10 Ministers and 10 Deputy Ministers who have failed than to drop 144 athletes who have contributed to the country,“ he reportedly said in a statement today.
The Bukit Mertajam MP said the ministry was only allocated RM17.5 million in 2020 for international sports championships such as the SEA Games in Vietnam, the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, and the Asian Games in Hangzhou this year. This compared to RM75.5 million allocated in 2018.
Sim said that with this sharp reduction, athletes and, sports associations are not getting sufficient allocations to face the challenges of international sports this year.
“When I raised the huge budget allocation gap, the Minister of Youth and Sports himself gave an assurance that athletes would not be neglected.
“Clearly, the Minister had not told the truth considering that just a month after his assurance that the ministry would not ignore athletes, a total of 144 athletes were dropped from the national sports training program,“ he said.
