When Our Children Must Be Debtless To Eat Free Nutrition

JAKARTA The Free Nutrition Food Program (MBG) was officially launched on Monday, January 6, 2025. This program targets 600 thousand school children spread across 26 provinces in Indonesia. The areas targeted are cities or districts that have been used as trial events for the implementation of MBG since the end of 2024.

The National Nutrition Agency (BGN) as the main implementer of the MBG program conducted trials at 100 points, with the focus of preschoolers to high school. During the trial period, the menu served was in the form of rice, meat / chicken, eggs, vegetables, fruit, and milk. That is the list of menus that President Prabowo Subianto wanted as the originator of the idea of MBG.

Dalam proses persiapan di seluruh Indonesia. Untuk yang tanggal 6 Januari sudah siap, kata Kepala BGN, Dadan Hindayana pada 1 Januari 2025 seperti dikutip Tempo.

Dadan added that the MBG trial will continue until next August. The test point will continue to be improved until it reaches 5000 places in August 2025.

The trial has not been completed, but Prabowo's flagship program during this campaign has been kick-off. The 8th President of the Republic of Indonesia once requested that the official implementation of the MBG start on January 2, but with all the limitations it finally began officially on January 6.

Is this MBG really ready to be inaugurated, considering that actually the trial has not been fully completed?

During the Prabowo 2025-2029 administration, the MBG program is targeted to target 82.9 million people. To achieve this amount, IDR 400 trillion per year is needed and involves 30 service unit facilities throughout Indonesia.

However, in the initial implementation, the target for MBG recipients was announced differently. BGN mentioned the number of 3 million MBG program recipients in the first three months of the program's implementation. That means within a month, there are a million people who get free meals.

On another occasion, the Palace through the spokesman Adita Irawati mentioned the figure of 600 thousand people for the initial months of the MBG implementation. If that is the monthly target, then there will be 1.8 million recipients for three months. However, if it is the initial three months target, then there are only 200 thousand recipients every month. Obviously, there is a difference between the targets announced by BGN and the Palace.

Coordinator of the Palace spokesman, Ujang Komaruddin, said that the numbers were different. He mentioned a spectacular number, 15 million MBG recipients in the inaugural implementation! Ujang did not specifically mention the 15 million figure for three months, half a year, or a year?

Even if that number is the target coverage within a year, then in a month there are 1,250,000 recipients. The figure is quite far from what BGN released, a million people. There is a difference of 750 thousand each month, which means that in three months there are 2,250,000 additional portions of BGN launched.

"The stages or locations that have not been touched will be evaluated so that the targets desired by the president until the end of the year and in the next five years can be realized. Likewise with human resources and infrastructure," said Ujang in an official statement received by VOI, Sunday (5/1/2025).

According to several groups, the number of targets that have changed is because the supporting infrastructure for the MBG program is actually not ready. In other words, this program is a bit forced to be realized immediately.

This condition is implicitly stated by the Minister of Education and Culture Abdul Mu'ti. Regarding the target of the school to be targeted for the MBG program, Mu'ti said it was still under discussion. The answer was conveyed when answering Tempo's question on January 2.

Only four days apart will the MBG program be officially launched, the target for the school to be targeted is not yet fully ready. How about this?

The MBG program clearly requires very large financing. Dadan Hindayana said the figure was IDR 800 billion per day. If implemented in full, the total figure reaches IDR 400 trillion in a year. However, the government emphasized that it only has a budget of IDR 71 trillion in the 2025 State Budget to work on the MBG program.

"We have included the APBN posture and it has been agreed by the elected president, which is to start in stages with an initial budget of IDR 71 trillion," said Sri Mulyani, who was still President Jokowi's Finance Minister, on June 24, 2024.

At that time, Sri also ensured that MBG would not undermine the budget in 2025, which had the potential to swell the budget deficit. Meanwhile, for the following years, there is no certainty about state revenues that will be allocated for MBG financing. So where to add to the shortcomings?

Presiden Prabowo sudah berkunjung ke China pada 9 November 2024, dan bertemu Presiden Xi Jinping. Salah satu agenda yang dibahas keduanya adalah soal MBG. China masih mengeloncurkan pinjaman senilai 10 miliar dolar AS, atau sekitar Rp157 triliun untuk mengkongsi berbagai sektor, termasuk program makan gratis tersebut.

In a meeting with Prabowo, Jinping as the leader of China approved a proposal for MBG program funding. The funding support was published in the Food Supplementation and School Feeding Program in Indonesia. The memorandum of understanding of the program was signed by the Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Airlangga Hartarto, which was witnessed directly by Prabowo and Jinping.

Although it was not clearly stated that the funding support was a loan, economic observers took it as debt. Tauhid Ahmad, a senior economist from the Institute for Development of Economics and Finance (Indef) said that most likely China's assistance was a soft loan, with interest ranging from 2-3 percent.

Business investment from China for the MBG program can be in the form of building a public kitchen or a product distribution system throughout Indonesia. To note, Indonesia must build at least 48 thousand public kitchens so that the MBG program can be carried out as expected.

Tauhid argues that China's investment is almost similar to what it does for the menengahsh High Speed Train. Not only providing debt, China will also send workers to complete the program completely. The difference is,omesh generates income to pay off debts while eating free is not.

"If this program really runs out of money and doesn't make profits like a high-speed train. So I don't know what the reason for receiving the loan is and how will I return the debt? Because the free nutritious meal is spent, the name is free, there is no financial refund," said Tauhid Ahmad, as quoted by BBC Indonesia on Wednesday (11/13/2024).

Tauhid is worried that Indonesia will be trapped in new debt problems, because the level of financial return for MBG program loans is very low. For repayment of loans, the government will withdraw from other sectors in the APBN.

Program seperti MBG sebenarnya sudah sering dilakukan di Indonesia melalui program Supplemental Food for School Children atau Pemberian Makanan Tambahan-Anak Sekolah (PMT-AS). Bahkan sejak zaman Presiden Suharto yang ditetapkan lewat Instruksi Presiden Republik Indonesia (Inpres) Nomor 1 tahun 1997, dikeluarkan pada 15 Januari 1997.

The program continues even though it is always cut off in the middle of the road. Even Anies Baswedan while serving as Governor of DKI Jakarta 2017-2022, also carried out PMT-AS.

According to the evaluation of the Balitbang Kemendikbud RI in 2010-2011, the PMT-US program could never be carried out continuously and failed to reach the target due to several factors. Among them: stagnant and even less funding, which causes schools to not be able to buy food that should be consumed by students. In addition, distribution problems are also hampered.

Even though programs such as MBG or PMT-US are very good. At least stimulate children to go to school because they get free food. This program is very suitable for doing in poor and underdeveloped areas.

A study conducted by the Global Child Nutrition Foundation (GCNF) in 2021 on free meals programs in 139 countries and includes 330.3 million schoolchildren concluded that the program could only run smoothly if managed properly and be sufficient from local supplies.

What about Indonesia, which relies more on imported food ingredients than local products? Even for rice which is staple food, Indonesia must import nearly 3.5 million tons throughout 2024. It's amazing, isn't it?