Free Lunch Program Enters RAPBN 2025, Sri Mulyani Opens Voice

Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani Indrawati (Photo: Antara)

Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani Indrawati opened her voice regarding the impact of the free lunch program included in the 2025 State Revenue and Expenditure Budget Draft (APBN).

For information, the free lunch program is a mainstay program of the presidential candidate pair (candidate) and vice presidential candidate (cawapres) number 02, namely Prabowo Subianto and Gibran Rakabuming Raka.

Sri Mulyani said that the free lunch program is still in the formulation process and the government is currently reviewing the indicative ceiling as preparation for the right budget ceiling to implement the program which will be placed with the appropriate ministries/institutions.

"This process is still running for the next three months, yes, and next month we will focus more on indicative ceilings and priority programs as the KPU decides who the official government will be," he told reporters some time ago, quoted Wednesday, February 28.

Therefore, Sri Mulyani said that the free lunch program is still under study and it needs to be considered many things and in the next month the government will still discuss the indicative ceiling of each Ministry/Institution.

"This is still in the program. In detail, we will see in the discussion about the indicative ceiling of each ministry/institution, later we will see from the existing program with what will enter new, and later it will be calculated in the next month," he said.

According to Sri Mulyani, the details of the new incoming programs will still be calculated, including the free lunch program. In addition, the calculation takes the next few months to be able to identify specifically the next government priority programs while waiting for the official results of the 2024 General Elections Commission (KPU).

"For the details, we will see that there are still a month and to respect the election process, yes, how will the results be formal, but at this time all preparations will still be made so that later in March we will hold another meeting for a cabinet meeting regarding the indicative ceiling, it has begun to be identified with programs that are the priority of the next government but are still in the context of a healthy APBN container," he said.

Sri Mulyani added another consideration, namely the potential deficit that could occur in the 2025 State Budget. Where the 2025 State Budget deficit is designed at 2.45 percent to 2.8 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). That ratio is up when compared to the target set this year of 2.29 percent of GDP.

"The deficit is between 2.45 percent - 2.8 percent of GDP. The president requested that it be really controlled in terms of its deficit so that in the global situation of high interest rates and turmoil from the geopolitical side, trust in the APBN can still be maintained," he said.

When asked whether the deficit had taken into account free lunch and milk programs, Sri Mulyani said that this included all the needs of ministries/agencies (K/L) and various commitments in 2025.

"Everything has to go in there. No one is On Top, right. So the deficit includes all the needs of ministries/agencies and various existing commitments," he concluded.