FILE PHOTO: Nandar Maulana, 17, lies inside an ambulance as he is being referred to a regional hospital for receiving treatment for food poisoning after eating a government-sponsored free school meal, in Bandung, West Java province, Indonesia, September 25, 2025. Over the past few weeks, more than a thousand students in various provinces have reportedly fallen ill after consuming the free meals. - Reuters
JAKARTA: The government insists on keeping the free nutritious meals programme running and will only close problematic kitchens temporarily for investigation, despite numbers of food poisoning cases continuing to increase among school students.
Over the past few weeks, more than a thousand students in various provinces have reportedly fallen ill after consuming the free meals from President Prabowo Subianto’s flagship free nutritious meal programme, with many hospitalised after experiencing severe nausea, seizures and loss of consciousness.
As of Sunday (Sept 29), education watchdog the Network for Education Watch Indonesia (JPPI) recorded some 8,649 kids had experienced poisoning. The Health Ministry, meanwhile, recorded over 5,200 victims as of mid-September.
The figures marked a drastic spike from the few hundred cases reported up to July, before the start of the new school year in August. The free meals programme started in January.
The spike in cases has since drawn scrutiny from health groups and education watchdogs, with some calling for a temporary suspension of the programme to prevent more cases and to allow for a “total evaluation”.
The President said he was well aware of the food poisoning incidents and that the National Nutrition Agency (BGN), which is in charge of the programme, and related ministries would work on the solution.
“This is a big [programme], so there will definitely be shortcomings from the start. But I’m also confident that we will resolve these [food poisoning] issues well,” Prabowo told reporters at Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport in East Jakarta on Saturday after arriving from his week-long visit to four countries.
The President also warned the public to not let food poisoning incidents be “politicised” as a weapon to take down the programme, stressing its importance for children from poor families, as quoted from a video clip of the interview published by the Presidential Secretariat.
“The purpose of the free meals programme is to help our children, many of whom are still having trouble getting access to food. Maybe we can afford to eat well, but [some of them] only eat rice with salt,” he said. “There will definitely be obstacles and challenges when we are providing for so many millions of people. We will overcome them.”
In a press briefing on Sunday, Coordinating Food Minister Zulkifli Hasan said that the government would “temporarily close problematic kitchens” that were linked to the poisoning cases until an unspecified time.
“We will close these problematic kitchens temporarily and conduct evaluation and investigation [of them],” Zulkifli said at the Health Ministry building in South Jakarta. BGN chair Dadan Hindayana, Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin and other ministers were present at the briefing.
Zulkifli said that the evaluation would also cover all kitchens still operating and noted that they would tighten their cleanliness standards especially by obtaining food hygiene certificates.
“While a hygiene and sanitation certificate is always a requirement, it has now received the government’s special attention after these recent [food poisoning] incidents. It will be mandatory for every kitchen to have these certificates [from now on],” he said.
Previously, the BGN had found that 45 kitchens had failed to follow the standard operating procedures for the free meals programme, leading them to close 40 of them indefinitely.
There were around 9,600 operational kitchens as of Sunday, according to BGN head Dadan, an increase from 8,900 recorded on Sept. 22.
Despite the government’s efforts, Ubaid Matraji of education watchdog slammed the move as a “very slow step and a misguided solution”.
“The free nutritious meals issue is not just about food poisoning, it is also about the alleged corruption of each serving’s budget, minimal accountability and the lack of transparency in its management,” Ubaid told The Jakarta Post on Sunday. “They should have closed all kitchens instead for evaluation.”
Criticism has also grown of the government’s revoking the access of CNN Indonesia television journalist Diana Valencia to the Palace press pool after she reportedly asked the President about the free meals programme on Saturday despite instructions from the Palace press bureau to not do so.
“The state must ensure that there are no obstructions to journalistic work within Indonesian jurisdiction, including within the Presidential Palace,” the Chief Editors Forum said in a statement on Sunday.
The Indonesian Television Journalists Association echoed a similar concern and said on Sunday that “the questions raised by the journalist in question are still within the corridor of journalism ethics and relevant to the public interest.”
Press Council chairman Komaruddin Hidayat said in a statement on Sunday that his office has received a complaint regarding the incident. He called on the Palace press bureau to reinstate the access. - The Jakarta Post/ANN
