Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s signature free meals programme is escalating into one in every of Indonesia’s greatest corruption scandals in years as officers battle to rein within the $15bn initiative amid allegations of graft and mismanagement.
Launched in 2025, the “Free Nutritious Meals” programme goals to deal with the power concern of stunting amongst kids, enhance their focus in class, and stimulate the native financial system.
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Indonesia almost halved the prevalence of stunting over the previous decade to round 20 p.c of youngsters nationwide, in keeping with the World Financial institution, nevertheless it stays stubbornly excessive in most of the archipelago’s japanese provinces and outer islands.
Over the previous 18 months, the programme has rolled out almost 28,000 kitchens, every supplying faculties and communities with as much as 3,000 meals a day.
Critics say the programme is simply too massive and unwieldy to be efficient, whereas the initiative has additionally been affected by 1000’s of circumstances of meals poisoning.
The initiative has additionally drawn world scrutiny since authorities arrested the top of Indonesia’s Nationwide Vitamin Company and two of his deputies in early June for alleged procurement fraud amounting to $56m.
Authorities have since expanded their investigations to seven individuals, together with an active-duty police officer and a navy officer.
After spending $2.8bn getting the programme off the bottom in 2025, the federal government in Might reduce this 12 months’s finances from $18.4bn to $14.7bn following a directive from Prabowo to make use of funds “extra successfully and effectively”.
However critics like Ronny Sasmita, a senior analyst on the Indonesia Strategic and Financial Motion Establishment, a Jakarta-based assume tank, say that Indonesia can not afford even a downsized model of the scheme, which is being partly funded by spending reallocated from the well being and schooling budgets.
Worse, Samsmita stated, the federal government has created an enormous alternative for corruption.
“From an financial governance perspective, the alleged corruption within the ‘Free Nutritious Meals’ programme stands out as probably the most vital circumstances Indonesia has seen in recent times, each in scale and systemic affect,” Sasmita instructed Al Jazeera.
“What makes it notably placing isn’t solely the scale of the finances concerned, provided that the programme is designed as a nationwide social intervention, but additionally the breadth of its implementation throughout areas, which creates a number of entry factors for leakages,” he stated.
Whereas kitchens established below the programme are funded by the federal government, they’re operated franchise-style by a community of foundations quite than via college canteens.
A few of these foundations have ties to the police and navy, in keeping with the Middle of Financial and Regulation Research (CELIOS), an Indonesian assume tank that has carried out a number of research on the programme.
Kitchen operators additionally obtain “day by day incentive charges” of 6 million rupiah ($324), described by the since-arrested vitamin company chief as tokens of “appreciation from the federal government to companions who’ve sacrificed to construct the amenities.”
At the very least 18,000 kitchens, greater than half of the programme’s amenities, are positioned on Java, Indonesia’s wealthiest and most populous island, in keeping with native media stories.
In the meantime, roughly 270 kitchens have been established in each japanese Papua, dwelling to 6 provinces with a few of Indonesia’s highest stunting charges, and Bali, the province with the bottom stunting charge.
Surplus kitchens
“Probably the most remoted, the poorest areas, the areas with probably the most stunting programmes are the bottom performing programmes,” stated Annette Mau, a member of the Indonesian Moms Alliance, which is among the many civil society teams monitoring the free meals programme.
“Why spend public cash feeding kids from prosperous households when some kids nonetheless face meals insecurity? That is the largest coverage design concern,” Mau instructed Al Jazeera.
Critics additionally take concern with the kitchens feeding kids of all ages via highschool, although interventions in opposition to stunting are best in pregnant and nursing girls and in toddlers.
In line with authorities knowledge, pregnant girls and toddlers made up simply 5 p.c of the 25.78 million recipients reached between January and September 2025.
The programme’s picture has additionally been marred by 1000’s of circumstances of meals poisoning, which reached 33,000 as of April 2026, in keeping with the Indonesian Training Monitoring Community.
Coordinating Minister for Meals Zulkifli Hasan instructed a media briefing in June that the programme was working almost 7,000 surplus kitchens, with incentive charges for these further amenities alone costing the state a trillion rupiah ($54m) monthly.
He additionally alleged that working permits might have been purchased and offered by operators, resulting in the variety of kitchens swelling past demand.
Indonesia’s Nationwide Vitamin Company and Prabowo’s workplace didn’t reply to Al Jazeera’s requests for remark.
Vid Adrison, head of the economics division on the College of Indonesia, stated civil society teams have steered that the federal government may get monetary savings through the use of current infrastructure, reminiscent of college canteens.
“Each college has their canteen, they usually already put together meals in keeping with the preferences of scholars,” Adrison instructed Al Jazeera.
“Why not simply optimise the present faculties as a substitute of making new kitchens?”
Officers have flagged adjustments amid the criticism of the rollout.
Final month, the Nationwide Vitamin Company stated it will put together a particular scheme concentrating on moms and toddlers within the “underdeveloped, frontier, and outermost areas” of Indonesia. generally known as the “3T Areas.”
One other $2.2bn may quickly be on the chopping block as the federal government strikes to additional downsize the programme.
Adjustments are additionally being made to the “incentives scheme,” in keeping with native media, though particulars have but to be launched.
Prabowo, in the meantime, has continued to defend his flagship programme as a hit story.
“Ask the farmers and fishermen. Ask the youngsters. Is [the programme] essential or not?” Prabowo stated throughout a speech final month, in keeping with Indonesia’s Antara information company.
“Some clever individuals say there are issues extra pressing than an empty abdomen. I don’t assume there may be something extra pressing than an empty abdomen,” he stated.
“If a hungry individual’s abdomen isn’t stuffed instantly, then they are going to die.”
