JAKARTA – The government has reaffirmed its commitment to improving the governance of the Free Nutritious Meals (MBG) program, which has become one of the key initiatives in developing the economy and empowering human resources across various sectors.
Coordinating Minister for Food Affairs, Zulkifli Hasan, revealed that he had received reports from the National Food Agency regarding several issues in the flagship program of President Prabowo Subianto. Although the issues affect only 0.005 percent of the total 3.4 million participants, the government remains committed to enhancing the governance of the Free Nutritious Meals program.
“We will focus more on addressing this, with the target of reducing incidents to zero,” said Zulhas.
The governance of the Free Nutritious Meals program will continue to be refined due to the many tasks involved in the program. Governance improvements and incident reductions aim to achieve the target of 82.9 million beneficiaries. To develop better governance, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform will be involved.
“The relevant ministries at the echelon one level will be supported by various stakeholders. The Ministry of Finance will be involved to ensure smooth budgeting, while the Ministry of Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform will play a role in providing the necessary personnel,” said Zulhas.
He also added that local governments, including regents and governors, will be directly involved in supporting the program.
“This role must be clearly defined because this is a crucial and urgent primary program. These roles will later be regulated in a presidential regulation or presidential instruction,” Zulhas continued.
Head of the National Food Body (BGN), Dadan Hindayana, stated that the existence of a presidential regulation governing the MBG program would support the funding for this priority program. The budget and schemes for accelerating MBG are still under discussion.
“Currently, we are training 30,000 new SPPI personnel, which will be completed by the end of July. Therefore, to run the Free Nutritious Meals program until July, we will only be able to serve around 6 million people,” he said.
With these strategic steps, the government hopes to ensure the sustainability and effectiveness of the MBG program in meeting the nutritional needs of the community in a fair and equitable manner.
