BGN Asks For An Additional IDR 100 Trillion To Meet The Target Of 82.9 Million MBG Recipients

JAKARTA - Head of the National Nutrition Agency (BGN) Dadan Hindayana recommends an additional budget for the Free Nutrition Food Program (MBG) of IDR 100 trillion to be able to meet all target beneficiaries of 82.9 million people by the end of 2025.

This was conveyed by Dadan in a limited meeting chaired by President Prabowo Subianto, at the Presidential Palace in Jakarta, Friday, January 17, regarding efforts to accelerate the provision of MBG to more beneficiaries.

"We convey that an additional Rp100 trillion is enough to provide food to all beneficiaries of 82.9 million," Dadan said as quoted by ANTARA.

Dadan said that in the meeting, President Prabowo Subianto stated that he wanted to accelerate the provision of MBG after receiving many reports from the public who claimed that their children had not been able to feel MBG after 10 days of running. According to Dadan, from the current budget, which is Rp71 trillion, it has not been able to reach all the beneficiaries.

According to Dadan, the community report made the President nervous, so that in the end the limited meeting not only discussed program evaluation but also looked for solutions to accelerate so that the program could be felt by more beneficiaries.

"The President is very nervous, because many children have reported to his mother that they have not received food from Pak Prabowo. So he really wants this program to be enjoyed by all beneficiaries," said Dadan.

According to him, if you only rely on the current budget, which is IDR 71 trillion, the acceleration cannot be done because the budget in the BGN count is only sufficient to reach 17.5 million beneficiaries by September 2025. Therefore, an additional budget is needed.

Regarding the addition of the budget, Dadan said President Prabowo specifically thought about the challenge so that it could be resolved immediately and would provide special statements separately.

"Please be patient, Mr. Prabowo will convey his own statement regarding his anxiety to the media," he said.

In addition to increasing the budget, Dadan said that one of the strategies emphasized by President Prabowo to accelerate the MBG program in the meeting was to ask ministries and institutions across sectors to be more solid.

"Mr. President wants this program to really cross sectors, and then work with each other," said Dadan.

After 10 days of running, the MBG program has now been carried out in 31 provinces in Indonesia with a total of 238 Nutrition Fulfillment Service Units (SPPG) having been operating to meet the manufacture of food for MBG.

In the first period, namely January-April 2025, it is targeted that there will be 3 million beneficiaries from the MBG program, then in the next stage of April-August 2025, it is targeted that this number will increase to 6 million beneficiaries.