Free Nutritious Meal Project for Family and Friends

April 22, 2025 | 04:31 pm

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Prabowo family and their cronies have been running the free nutritious meals project. It is a populist program rife with corruption, collusion and nepotism.

WHEN it comes to implementing the free nutritious meal program, President Prabowo Subianto gives the impression of being consistent with the saying he quoted in a speech in March 2025: dogs bark, but the caravan goes on.

There have been many complaints and criticisms – from the poor quality food to chaotic distribution and vendors going bankrupt because they have not been paid – but improvements have fallen well short of expectations. As well as being implemented without proper planning and with minimal transparency, Prabowo's flagship program to improve children's nutrition became a way of sharing out projects among his cronies.

Rolled out simultaneously on January 6, 2025, the program has an ambitious target: reaching 82.9 beneficiaries by the end of this year. The free nutritious meals will absorb Rp71 trillion of state funds. But if spending stays at the same level, there will only be enough to fund the program until the middle of the year.

At a time of tight budgets, the sustainability of the free nutritious meals program is now being questioned. It also has the potential to cause fiscal risks in the future, from ballooning state debt to tax rises. But with his command politics, Prabowo is forcing the realization of the free nutritious meal program – by any means necessary.

This policy is the realization of Prabowo's promise made during the 2024 presidential election campaign. Thought to be a way of increasing Prabowo's share of the vote, nutritious meals became a populist program that was not properly planned. Unlike similar programs in other nations – China, Japan and Finland, to name a few – this policy did not involve the people in its planning.

And there was very little consultation or coordination between the government and the people responsible for the implementation, including the public. Without any consultation, there was no way to test the acceptability of the policy. And with so little coordination, the program descended into chaos, including uncertainty over funding. Ignoring all the proper processes, the bureaucratic apparatus moved solely based on "orders from the president."

There was also disarray at the implementation stage. Procurement without any tenders provided an opportunity for collusion and nepotism. An investigation by this magazine discovered that several partners appointed by the National Nutrition Agency were supporters of Prabowo and Gerindra Party candidates in the 2024 elections.

One of them is the National Solidarity Movement Foundation, which manages kitchens in Mampang Prapatan, South Jakarta and Depok, West Java. Prabowo is the founder as well as the advisor to this foundation. Prabowo's brother and his son, Hashim Djojohadikusumo and Ragowo Hediprasetyo alias Didit, are advisory members, along with Defense Minister Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin. Pertamina Chief Executive Officer Simon Aloysius Mantiri is the foundation's treasurer.

Another name that has appeared is Lenis Kogoya. Through the Prabu Center Kosong Delapan Foundation, this Defense Ministry special staff manages kitchens in Bangka Belitung, Bali, Banten, Bengkulu and Jakarta. Then there is the Bosowa Bina Insani Foundation, established by tycoon Aksa Mahmud. Erwin Aksa, Aksa's son and Golkar Party politician who was deputy head of the Prabowo Subianto-Gibran Rakabuming Raka national campaign team, is an advisory member of this foundation. The involvement of Prabowo and people close to him could easily lead to conflicts of interest and result in the program deviating from its aims.

On the ground, a number of foundations that are partners of the National Nutrition Agency have handed over their responsibilities to other vendors. The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) has received reports that the price of the meals has fallen from Rp10,000 to Rp8,000 per portion. A number of partners of the National Nutrition Agency have submitted unreasonably large invoices. As well as this, there have been complaints related to health: food unfit for consumption.

The free nutritious meals program must be stopped and comprehensively evaluated. The KPK and the Supreme Audit Agency must be involved.

If it is to continue, the free nutritious meal program must start again from the beginning: planning must be more thorough, including recalculating the availability of government funds. Cuts to the budget for the free nutritious meals program have given rise to an irony: at school, children receive free food, but at home, fathers are unemployed because they have been dismissed from their jobs. Budget cuts for Prabowo's populist program have burdened industries across numerous sectors, forcing them to lay off a significant number of workers.

Prabowo should not force through programs solely for the sake of his personal ambition. The free nutritious meal program is the latest example: with command politics and leadership, a program can be swiftly implemented, but then quickly fall apart because of poor planning. Command leadership can become an effective bunker to conceal bad intentions: collusion, corruption and nepotism.

Read the Complete Story in Tempo English Magazine

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