Free Nutrition Eating Fraud Appears, DPR: Don't Let The Community Be Pessimist

Vice President Gibran Rakabuming Raka while reviewing the trial of the free nutritious eating program at SDN Sentul 03, Bogor, Tuesday 23 July 2024. (ANTARA PHOTO-Yulius Satria Wijaya)

JAKARTA - Member of Commission IX DPR RI Zainul Munasichin asked the government to anticipate that the free nutritious eating program (MBG) will no longer be misused by irresponsible persons.

This is because there has been fraud with victims of small-tail entrepreneurs who are lured to become food providers for the program.

"The practices of the individuals below are on behalf of the MBG program where victims start, such as catering companies, extortion and all kinds of things, we ask for that help to be brought under control and anticipated," Zainul told reporters, Sunday, January 5.

Zainul emphasized that stricter supervision to anticipate fraud again is needed to prevent President Prabowo Subianto's flagship program from being viewed negatively by the public.

"Do not let the practice of illegally seeking profit tarnish this very good program and make people then pessimistic," he said.

On the one hand, Zainul doubts the smooth running of the MBG program with a budget of IDR 10,000 per serving in schools which officially starts tomorrow, Monday, January 6, 2025.

According to Zainul, the MBG budget set by the central government needs to be re-discussed with the DPR. Because, according to him, this is related to the fulfillment of the nutritional content of the students who are the targets of the program.

"In my opinion, the Rp10 thousand budget must be re-discussed, because this concerns the minimum nutritional standards that must be in one portion," he said.

Zainul emphasized that the government has not discussed in detail with the Indonesian House of Representatives regarding the proportion of the MBG budget which was previously planned for IDR 15 thousand per portion and has now decreased to IDR 10,000.

He is worried that nutritious food at a price of Rp. 10,000 per serving is not enough to meet children's nutritional needs.

"We have a note, our calculations are that Rp. 10,000 per serving does not seem to have entered. If the milk is put in, that's not enough, it's a budget of Rp. 10,000," said the member of the PKB faction of the DPR RI.

Dozens of catering entrepreneurs in Kediri, East Java, were deceived by the actions of individuals with the lure of preparing a free nutritious meal. In fact, the information is that the money collected is more than Rp. 70 million from the actions taken by these individuals.

The fraudulent act of providing free nutritious food also occurred in Bukittinggi City. The perpetrator on behalf of Kodim asked to pay to culinary entrepreneurs of up to tens of millions of rupiah.

The modus operandi of fraud actors in Bukittinggi is to ask the victim for assistance in procuring free nutritious food. However, because the victim did not have raw materials in the form of canned fish and Kornet meat, the victim was finally willing to send some money.