October 16, 2025
JAKARTA – Finance Minister Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa has called for improved budget absorption for the free nutritious meals (MBG) program, after the National Nutrition Agency (BGN), which oversees the initiative, revealed plans to return unspent funds amid slow spending.
BGN head Dadan Hindayana said the agency would “return” part of the Rp 71 trillion (US$4.27 billion) allocation from the 2025 state budget and an additional Rp 100 trillion in “standby funds” that became available following budget cuts earlier this year.
“Of the total, Rp 99 trillion is [expected to] be absorbed [by the end of the year], while Rp 70 trillion will be returned to the President of the Republic of Indonesia because it’s unlikely to be absorbed this year,” Dadan said in a statement published on Monday.
Responding to this, Purbaya dismissed the idea of “returning the funds”.
“No, from what I know, BGN [plans to] return Rp 100 trillion from the additional budget they had previously requested, but it actually hasn’t been allocated yet, so there is not any real money to be returned,” he told reporters on Tuesday, adding that he would continue monitoring the budget absorption.
“The program is good, we must push for better absorption. I’ll review the progress through the end of October.”
Budget absorption for the MBG program remains sluggish, with only Rp 20.6 trillion spent as of Oct. 3, far below the Rp 171 trillion allocated. The initiative’s reach has also lagged, covering just 31.2 million beneficiaries through 10,572 nutrition units, compared with the government’s ambitious targets of 82.9 million recipients and 32,000 units this year.
Purbaya had earlier warned that he would reallocate the state budget if disbursement for the MBG program continued to lag, saying the funds could be better used for other initiatives. He even stood firm on the plan despite opposition from National Economic Council (DEN) head Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, a former senior minister he once served under as an expert staffer.
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Meanwhile, BGN head Dadan Hindayana emphasized that sufficient “human resources” and “infrastructure” were crucial to ensuring the effective rollout of the free meals program.
He praised the government’s strong backing, noting that next year’s budget allocation for the initiative has been set at Rp 268 trillion, supplemented by Rp 67 trillion in standby funds, bringing the total budget for 2026 to a hefty Rp 335 trillion.
The government remains bullish on the program, despite a series of food poisoning incidents that have marred its rollout in recent months. As of Sept. 30, BGN recorded 6,457 students nationwide falling ill after consuming meals distributed through the initiative since its January launch, involving at least 72 kitchens.
However, the Indonesian Education Monitoring Network (JPPI) reported a far higher figure, saying the number of affected students had reached 11,566 as of Oct. 12.
BGN said it had suspended operations at “problematic” kitchens and launched investigations, but stopped short of halting the program.
The effort, however, has done little to stem new cases. Just this week, at least 345 students from elementary to senior high schools in Cisarua, West Java, reportedly suffered food poisoning after eating meals provided under the scheme.
Read also: Govt unfreezes Rp 169t amid slow free meals rollout
Execution gap
M. Rizal Taufikurahman, head of the Center for Macroeconomics and Finance at the Institute for Development of Economics and Finance (Indef), said that the sluggish spending reflected structural problems in the program’s design, governance and fiscal bureaucracy capacity.
He told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday that the MBG program continued to face technical bottlenecks, from limited human resources in regional areas and overlapping institutional authorities to complex verification processes that had slowed spending.
The idle funds, he added, could dampen the multiplier effect on the food sector, micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), and local logistics, while millions of beneficiaries might also face delays in receiving additional nutrition.
“The approach must shift from being spending-driven to performance-driven, allocating budgets according to real capacity and actual performance on the ground rather than merely political targets,” Rizal noted.
Syafruddin Karimi, an economist at Andalas University, argued that while the “returned” budget could help maintain the government’s credibility in achieving a “zero idle budget,” it also underscored BGN’s limited execution capacity relative to its proposed funding scale.
He added that low spending could create room for budget reallocation, but the short-term fiscal gain would come at the cost of lost multiplier effects in boosting employment and MSME turnover. It could also further weaken public confidence in large-scale social programs and widen regional disparities.
“The government needs to focus on improving execution architecture rather than just increasing the budget size,” Syafruddin told the Post on Wednesday.
He suggested several key measures, including organizing beneficiary lists and distribution channels, improving contract and payment mechanisms and implementing real-time monitoring with regular reporting.