Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s signature free meals programme is escalating into one of Indonesia’s biggest corruption scandals in years as officials struggle to rein in the $15bn initiative amid allegations of graft and mismanagement.Launched in 2025, the “Free Nutritious Meals” programme aims to address the chronic issue of stunting among children, improve their focus in school, and stimulate the local economy.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of listIndonesia nearly halved the prevalence of stunting over the past decade to around 20 percent of children nationwide, according to the World Bank, but it remains stubbornly high in many of the archipelago’s eastern provinces and outer islands.Over the past 18 months, the programme has rolled out nearly 28,000 kitchens, each supplying schools and communities with up to 3,000 meals a day.Critics say the programme is too large and unwieldy to be effective, while the initiative has also been plagued by thousands of cases of food poisoning.The initiative has also drawn global scrutiny since authorities arrested the head of Indonesia’s National Nutrition Agency and two of his deputies in early June for alleged procurement fraud amounting to $56m.Authorities have since expanded their investigations to seven people, including an active-duty police officer and a military officer.After spending $2.8bn getting the programme off the ground in 2025, the government in May cut this year’s budget from $18.4bn to $14.7bn following a dir …
