Editorial: BGN graft case probe calls for MBG overhaul
The Prabowo administration must seize this momentum to rethink the free meals program
The arrest of Dadan Hindayana, the Head of the National Nutrition Agency (BGN), along with his two deputies, was nothing short of dramatic. But are we surprised?
We all saw it coming. The agency, which administers the implementation of President Prabowo’s flagship Free Nutritious Meal (MBG) program, has been under public scrutiny due to its massive Rp 268 trillion in state funding. But the nationwide initiative was rolled out under a cloud of systemic vulnerabilities: vague accountability mechanisms, opaque kitchen partnerships, and a rush for scale.
The Attorney General’s Office (AGO) alleged that Dadan and his deputies funneled lucrative kitchen management contracts through personal, closely tied foundations. It exposes how vulnerable the program was to greed. A multi-billion-dollar procurement budget, coupled with the decentralized distribution of daily meals and a lack of strict governance, has turned public welfare into a private feeding frenzy.
Yet, as devastating as this scandal appears in the headlines, it offers the government a rare political gift: a clean slate to start over.
It’s no secret that bureaucratic failures often trigger defensive PR campaigns to save face. But in BGN’s case, there is no need to play defensive. There is no face left to save for the previous management. Now that the rot has been excised, the government should just openly admit that the initial governance framework was deeply flawed.
This arrest may not be the death knell of the MBG program, but rather a signal of a chaotic, necessary rebirth towards its institutional maturity.
That said, we are seeing somewhat encouraging indications that the new leadership intends to use this crisis wisely.
Immediately after her appointment, the new BGN head, Nanik S. Deyang, announced a moratorium on the construction of new Nutrition Fulfillment Service Units (SPPGs). Despite her own controversies (which include dismissing criticisms of MBG), Nanik’s new direction for MBG is a necessary operational brake the program needs.
Civil society groups have warned for months that the expansion of these partner kitchens without established standards was fertile ground for procurement fraud. Pausing the expansion, on the other hand, will allow the government to freeze the bleeding, audit existing sites, and restructure operations without the pressure to hit arbitrary rollout targets.
Nanik also mentioned that she would refocus the program to prioritize beneficiaries in the “left-behind” (frontier, outermost, and disadvantaged, or 3T) regions. This is a welcome change. Rightly so. But Nanik was quick to follow up by stating that MBG in the 3T regions should be funded through contributions from foreign partners and philanthropies rather than relying on the state budget.
That statement makes one raise their eyebrows as it brings us back to square one: BGN sees evidence of inefficiency, but immediately shifts the burden elsewhere rather than addressing the root cause. If stopping MBG is out of the question for this administration, then at least they must stop the leakage of trillions of public funds.
Learning from this brouhaha, the new administrators should acknowledge that corrupt officials have been exploiting blind spots in MBG implementation, which originated from the administration’s impetuous appetite to achieve “greatness” (millions of people fed, thousands of kitchens built, millions of new jobs created) overnight.
Thus, if they want to go on, this is the momentum to first rethink what MBG wants to achieve and, thus, how best to design the program to get there. (We’ve previously argued in this article that MBG is unsure of what problem it wants to solve.)
Obviously, when they figure this out, they also need to address operational problems that have been the cherry on top of this whole fiasco: ensure standardized and transparent procurement, empower independent oversight, and prioritize quality over velocity.
A chance to course-correct
The President’s decisive purge of the old guard proves that the administration understands the stakes. Let’s be realistic: the MBG program cannot and will not be rolled back. It is the defining campaign promise of this administration, and millions of families are already counting on it. But precisely because it is here to stay, the government must treat this crisis as an unprecedented, probably unrepeatable opportunity to course-correct.
The moratorium and the arrests are aggressive first steps in the right direction, but they are just the prologue. We urge the government to follow through with absolute, unyielding structural reforms. This is the moment to drop the political theater, build the system the right way from the ground up, and ensure that a program meant to nourish the nation’s children would not serve to line the pockets of its elites, ever again.