Free Lunch Program Will 'Fry Up' The State Budget

Gibran Rakabuming Raka (right) distributed boxed milk to students while visiting the Tangerang Asshidiqiyah Islamic Boarding School. (Photo: Doc. ANTARA)

JAKARTA - Public Budget Researcher of the National Secretariat of the Indonesian Forum for Budget Transparency (FITRA) Bernard assessed that the free lunch program will have an impact on the performance of the state budget so that there is the potential for cutting or sacrificing other programs.

The free lunch program is carried by pair number 2, Prabowo-Gibran and is planned to be included in the State Revenue and Expenditure Budget (APBN 2025).

"The performance of the APBN which is starting to recover will actually be torn apart by the forced free lunch program. When viewed from the performance of the State Budget, the 2023 State Budget deficit has undergone a correction compared to 2022, which is 1.65 percent of GDP or IDR 347.6 trillion," Bernard explained in his statement, quoted Wednesday, February 28.

However, the budget deficit still shows a difference between income and expenditure which has an impact on the narrow fiscal capacity of the Central Government in developing new programs.

The State Budget deficit is correlated with the government program plan to hold free lunch with a budget of IDR 450 trillion.

Bernard said that this free lunch program had an impact on cutting or sacrificing other programs. This raises questions about which government programs will be sacrificed to smooth out the free lunch plan.

In addition, there is a discourse that it will abolish energy subsidies such as electricity and fuel to cover the free lunch budget because the energy subsidy allocation is IDR 350 trillion.

"Even though the discourse on increasing fuel and electricity rates has been rejected by the Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources, people hope to be anxious, because the narrative of subsidies not on target has always been an excuse for the government to reduce fuel and electricity subsidies which have an impact on budget increases," he said.

According to Bernard, the haphazard free lunch program is attached to the educational function and function of social protection. According to him, citing Prabowo's statement at the 2024 Political and Economic Outlook Trimegah event some time ago, the free lunch program was attached to the function of education and social protection.

"This pragmatic statement has the potential to negate or reduce other priority programs in these two functions. The Education function budget is Rp655 trillion. Meanwhile, the Social Protection function budget is Rp496 trillion. It is worth observing, that each of these functions has priority programs," he said.

The budget allocation for the function of education has been plotted for School Operational Assistance (BOS) and Education Operational Assistance (BOP), scholarships, the Indonesia Smart Program (PIP), Smart Indonesia Card (KIP) and other programs.

Likewise, social protection functions that already have the designation of priority programs, such as the Family Hope Program (PKH), Social Assistance (Bansos), PBI JKN contributions, and other programs.

Bernard said that the forced budget for the free lunch program would have the potential to create new problems.

If forced for a free lunch program, some will be sacrificed and potentially disrupting existing stability.

According to him, the free lunch program is still unclear, the data collection on beneficiaries, the supply flow of raw materials, and the implementation are still to beneficiaries.

In addition, instead of creating prosperity, the free lunch program has the potential to add problems such as widening the budget deficit, damaging stable programs, creating piles of garbage due to leftover food, disrupting the trade balance due to imported raw materials.

"Especially if the source of the budget for the free lunch program is from the reallocation of the budget due to the reduction in the energy subsidy budget. FITRA assesses that this action is a smuggling of public budgets that never make sense," he explained.

Bernard suggested that the government should think more clearly and be creative in seeing sources of income to finance free lunch programs.

According to him, it cannot reallocate the budget from other programs unless the bureaucracy in Indonesia really works hard to make budget efficiency.

"Even though it is not necessarily effective at all. The budget basis for the free lunch program is still competitive, not much different from the implementation plan. So far, there is no picture that has made it clear that the free lunch program will be funded by APBN sources from where," he said.

Bernard assessed that the budget's strategy for free lunch shows indications that President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) has never been neutral in the 2024 presidential election contestation.

In addition, budget intelligence is an indication that the government is not creative in an effort to increase state revenue from other potential sources, to increase the budget for the new president's priority program.

"Exploring the potential for new income, the government's efforts are usually not far from burdening the people with its various tax policies, by increasing tax rates which automatically have an impact on reducing people's income. Government solutions are often not solution for the people at the grassroots," he said.

Bernard assessed that the free lunch program so far still does not have a fairly strong foundation, there is still a lot of weakness from the regulatory umbrella that regulates it, the technical framework for implementation, the source of raw materials, the actors involved, the validity of the beneficiary data, and budget sources to support the program.

Bernard encourages the current government, led by President Joko Widodo, to focus on the Republic's problems that are in sight, such as rising food prices that are increasingly out of control, the impact of climate change that has not been seriously addressed, anticipation of a global economic slowdown, and other issues.

In addition, the FITRA National Secretariat assesses that the discussion of the Free Lunch Program in the 2025 State Budget Draft is a form of technocratic understanding.

"Walking without paying attention to the final results of the presidential election which was officially issued by the KPU. That is true, the Government's Work Plan needs to be sustainable during the transitional transition of the President and Vice President, but the discussion should have been carried out after the KPU officially announced the results of the presidential election," he concluded.