Prabowo's Economic Team Opens Opportunities To Change Free Nutrition Food Program Budget By 2025

JAKARTA - Member of the TKN Expert Council Prabowo-Gibran Drajad Wibowo opens the opportunity to adjust the Free Nutrition Food program (MBG) budget in 2025.

So far, the MBG budget for 2025 has been agreed to be IDR 71 trillion. However, the Head of the National Nutrition Agency Dadan Hindayana said the MBG Program would spend a budget of IDR 800 billion per day, which means there is a possibility that the budget needed will exceed IDR 71 trillion.

"While we remain at Rp71 trillion. However, Pak Prabowo was given the freedom to carry out the APBN-Change. After we know the more detailed posture later in 2025, we will make changes according to the existing situation," said Drajad after Indonesia Future Policy Dialogue activities in Jakarta, quoted from Antara, Wednesday 9 October.

According to him, MBG's budget adjustment will see the development of state revenues. If state revenues increase, there is a possibility that the MBG budget will also increase.

However, the details of the budget used for the MBG Program so far still refer to the decision of the National Nutrition Agency.

Yesterday, the Head of the National Nutrition Agency stated that if the MBG Program was fully running, his party would spend IDR 1.2 trillion per day on human resource investment (HR), of which 75 percent or around IDR 800 billion was used for MBG Program spending.

The Rp800 billion budget will be used to buy raw materials for food menus from agricultural products, which are also expected to trigger large amounts of money in the community.

In its implementation, the National Nutrition Agency will also involve cooperatives or Village-Owned Enterprises (BUMDes) to support the local economy.

This program is planned to start in January 2025. However, before that, in November 2024, the National Nutrition Agency will again hold a trial of the MBG program with a wider area.

Determination of the target for trial participants will be determined through the school first, while the National Nutrition Agency records the number of pregnant women, breastfeeding mothers, toddlers, and school children to obtain real data.

Dadan ensured that the MBG program implemented by the National Nutrition Agency would be carried out centrally and under control. Funds received from the state will be directly distributed to the service unit that implements this program.