JAKARTA: Indonesia should suspend President Prabowo Subianto’s signature free meals programme and significantly widen a graft probe into the project, according to one of the groups that first brought alleged corruption in the initiative to light.
The National Nutrition Agency, known as BGN, should be dissolved outright, said Wana Alamsyah, head of the law and investigation division at Indonesia Corruption Watch, a group that advocates for clean political, legal and economic systems based on social justice and gender equality.
Authorities this month announced a corruption probe into Dadan Hindayana, a day after his dismissal as head of BGN, which is overseeing a roughly US$15 billion nation-wide plan to reduce malnutrition and poverty.
Four others, including two of Dadan’s former deputies, have also been detained, and ICW says more scrutiny is needed of an agency that was created less than two years ago but already delivers meals to more than 60 million people.
"Authorities should investigate all parties who may have benefited from the programme’s poor governance,” Wana said in an interview, arguing the meals programme was poorly planned and rolled out too quickly. "Law enforcement authorities should also examine the roles of vendors and procurement committee members involved in the process.”
The Attorney-General’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The new head of the free meals agency has said she will refocus the mission of Prabowo’s flagship programme with an eye to efficiency and scaled-down plans. The agency aims to spend less than the 268 trillion rupiah (US$14.9 billion) budgeted for this year by focusing on remote regions, Nanik S. Deyang said earlier this month.
"We will improve the quality so we might not chase the target of reaching 82.9 million recipients, but instead focus on how can these kitchens provide healthy, nutritious food,” Deyang said.
Prabowo has warned he won’t tolerate any corruption in the project.
"I do not want the people’s money to be stolen,” Prabowo said in an address to thousands of officials and partners of the food initiative, hours after Dadan’s detention. "There are no exceptions.”
On Friday (June 12), police in Jakarta clashed with students who were protesting Prabowo’s spending plans and calling for the free meals programme to be scrapped. There were further protests in several major cities Monday, with authorities deploying more than 6,000 police and military personnel in the capital.
The cost of the programme has also created nervousness among investors concerned about Indonesia’s budget, which is being stretched as the Iran war drives up the cost of fuel subsidies. Some economists and think tanks question whether the initiative will lead to the employment, health and economic outcomes promised.
The detentions in connection with alleged graft include an executive at a company involved in providing motorbikes to the programme. But the investigation by the Attorney-General’s office needs to go well beyond top-level officials at the agency, Wana said.
Wana also queried why the agency was only in the spotlight now, when problems were widely known. There have been reports of food poisoning and complaints about low-quality meals or ultra-processed food.
Some think tanks have questioned why it was implemented in all schools in Indonesia rather than targeted at areas of real need, such as rural, poorer parts of the country.
"There has been a lot of criticism on social media, especially over the procurement, but the government did not deal with that criticism, they waited for a formal complaint,” Wana said. "Why didn’t they handle this in 2025? Why are they starting now?”
"My personal assumption is because our fiscal situation is really bad, and they need to calculate the fiscal picture again,” he said. But to avoid a backlash from the kitchens already set up, "they need to sacrifice someone to legitimate the rearrangement or refocusing of the programme.”
ICW has previously warned the kitchen network underpinning the free-meals programme is vulnerable to patronage. In a report reviewing 102 foundations involved in running kitchens across 38 provinces, ICW said it found ties to politically-linked individuals including politicians, government officials, military figures, law-enforcement officials and business networks.
A separate report by the Jakarta-based Centre of Economic and Law Studies found that 79 per cent of respondents were aware of potential conflicts of interest in the direct appointment of vendors, while an earlier study warned the programme risked uneven distribution, questionable food quality and budget inefficiencies.
The agency’s new head, Deyang, has announced a moratorium on new free meal kitchens in order to tighten the screening process for applicants. The programme will promote the use of existing facilities such as school canteens instead of building new kitchens, she said. - Bloomberg
