JAKARTA: President Prabowo Subianto has pledged to address various problems surrounding his administration’s flagship free nutritious meal programme, while defending the multibillion-rupiah initiative as essential for students and farmers nationwide amid mounting concerns over its governance.
Speaking from East Java during the inauguration of over 1,000 village cooperatives on Saturday (May 16), Prabowo acknowledged that the free meals project had encountered numerous “problems and challenges” since its launch early last year.
“It’s true that there are many challenges. The free meals programme comes with many problems. We must put things in order,” Prabowo said in the event livestreamed on the Presidential Secretariat YouTube channel.
The programme, which is aimed to combat malnutrition nationwide, has reached nearly 62 million recipients as of May 12, inching toward its year-end target of 82.9 million schoolchildren and pregnant mothers combined, according to the Government Communications Agency (GCA).
While not specifying the programme’s problems, Prabowo pointed the blame towards officials in positions of authority, some of whom he claim “lost their integrity when faced with money” and failed to uphold the principles expected from public servants.
The President added that his administration would not hesitate to sanction any officials “who violate the rules” and “abuse their authority.”
“We will clean them up, and we will remove them from their position,” Prabowo said. The free meals programme has faced mounting criticism since its launch over hygiene concerns, governance issues and alleged corruption in procurement and facility construction.
The Network for Education Watch Indonesia national coordinator Ubaid Matraji said on Sunday that the watchdog recorded more than 33,600 students suffering from food poisoning linked to the programme since 2025.
The Health Minister recorded a higher figure, with a total of 37,673 victims across Indonesia as of May 12, kompas.com reported.
The programme has also been flagged by antigraft watchdog Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) for alleged irregularities involving procurement costs and kitchen construction budgets across several provinces.
Dadan Hindayana, head of the National Nutrition Agency (BGN) in charge of the programme, said on Sunday that Prabowo’s corrective measures would focus on “improving service and facility quality as well as strengthening the agency’s internal management.” Dadan did not elaborate further.
Despite the controversies, Prabowo on Saturday insisted that the programme remained crucial not only for millions of school students but also for farmers and families relying on the initiative’s economic impact.
“Everywhere I go, I meet ordinary people and farmers saying ‘Sir, please do not stop the free meals programme. It really helps my grandchildren to eat, it really helps me and my family,’” Prabowo boasted. “Free meals are very important.”
ICW acting coordinator Almas Sjafrina urged the government to address broader governance problems within the programme itself rather than focusing on handling individual cases.
She said that the government should conduct a thorough audit to assess whether the programme had genuinely improved nutrition in children, warning that “political patronage and conflicts of interest” could undermine the initiative’s intended goals.
“The standard of success should shift toward the meals’ nutritional impact,” Almas said on Sunday. “Given [the number of poisoning incidents], the programme cannot simply be declared successful because it has distributed millions of meals or reached millions of recipients." - The Jakarta Post/ANN
