A Month into Free Nutritious Meals, Prabowo's Govt Urged to Set Priority Targets

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The deputy chair of House Commission X, Maria Yohana Esti Wijayati, says the implementation of the Prabowo-led program, or MBG, has been somewhat off the mark.

The parliament member said free nutritious meals—with a budget of Rp10,000 per meal—must not be given to all students across Indonesia, especially not children from affluent families.

One month into the program implementation, Maria said the government must set a priority target for the free nutritious meal program. “The MBG requires a prioritized target, or, in other words, not to be distributed to the entirety of the schoolchildren population,” said Maria when met at the Parliament complex in Senayan, Jakarta, on Thursday, February 6, 2025.

The nutritious free meals, she said, must be prioritized for children from underprivileged families, especially those residing in 3T regions (frontier, outermost, and underdeveloped), as well as regions with high stunting and poverty rates.

Maria affirmed that House Commission X supports Prabowo’s government priority program, but improvements are required to its target and distribution mechanisms, priority scale, and infrastructure.

"I hope the free nutritious meal program will continue, but we are hoping for the best mechanism with a well-prepared infrastructure," she said.

The program was first implemented on January 6, 2025. This program was a campaign promise of Prabowo Subianto and Gibran Rakabuming Raka in the 2024 Presidential Election.

President Prabowo targets the number of free nutritious meal recipients to reach 3 million by April 2025 and 6 million by August. By the end of 2025, Prabowo aims to serve free meals to 82.9 million children, pregnant people, and nursing mothers.

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