Indonesia’s free meals programme plagued by alleged corruption and waste

Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s signature free meals programme is escalating into one of Indonesia’s biggest corruption scandals in years as officials struggle to rein in the $15bn initiative amid allegations of graft and mismanagement.

Launched in 2025, the “Free Nutritious Meals” programme aims to address the chronic issue of stunting among children, improve their focus in school, and stimulate the local economy.
But critics like Ronny Sasmita, a senior analyst at the Indonesia Strategic and Economic Action Institution, a Jakarta-based think tank, say that Indonesia cannot afford even a downsized version of the scheme, which is being partly funded by spending reallocated from the health and education budgets.

Worse, Samsmita said, the government has created a massive opportunity for corruption.

“From an economic governance perspective, the alleged corruption in the ‘Free Nutritious Meals’ programme stands out as one of the most significant cases Indonesia has seen in recent years, both in scale and systemic impact,” Sasmita told Al Jazeera.

“What makes it particularly striking is not only the size of the budget involved, given that the programme is designed as a nationwide social intervention, but also the breadth of its implementation across regions, which creates multiple entry points for leakages,” he said.
While kitchens established under the programme are funded by the government, they are operated franchise-style by a network of foundations rather than through school canteens.

Some of these foundations have ties to the police and military, according to the Center of Economic and Law Studies (CELIOS), an Indonesian think tank that has conducted multiple studies on the programme.

Kitchen operators also receive “daily incentive fees” of 6 million rupiah ($324), described by the since-arrested nutrition agency chief as tokens of “appreciation from the government to partners who have sacrificed to build the facilities.”

At least 18,000 kitchens, more than half of the programme’s facilities, are located on Java, Indonesia’s wealthiest and most populous island, according to local media reports.

Meanwhile, roughly 270 kitchens were established in both eastern Papua, home to six provinces with some of Indonesia’s highest stunting rates, and Bali, the province with the lowest stunting rate.

Surplus kitchens
“The most isolated, the poorest areas, the areas with the most stunting programmes are the lowest performing programmes,” said Annette Mau, a member of the Indonesian Mothers Alliance, which is among the civil society groups monitoring the free meals programme.

“Why spend public money feeding children from affluent households when some children still face food insecurity? This is the biggest policy design issue,” Mau told Al Jazeera.