5 Facts on the Procurement of School Shoes and Socks for the People's School Programme
The procurement of shoes and socks under the Ministry of Social Affairs’ People’s School programme has raised several issues, from spending schemes to discrepancies in data and officials’ statements. Here are five key facts about the matter:
Initial Shoe Purchases Handed Over to Schools
Social Affairs Minister Saifullah Yusuf, or Gus Ipul, stated that the initial procurement of shoes was not conducted centrally. Funds were allocated to each school, with purchases made independently in the market.
This scheme was chosen due to the urgent needs ahead of the school entry period and MPLS. In such conditions, the government only provided general guidelines, while the transaction process was handled directly by the schools with receipts. “The budget is given to the schools, and the schools buy them on their own,” said Gus Ipul when met at his office on Tuesday, 5 May 2026.
Loose Specifications, Non-Uniform Prices
The Ministry only set a maximum price limit of around Rp 450,000 per pair and simple specifications such as black colour and certain materials. There were no binding detailed technical standards across regions.
As a result, shoe prices varied across schools. With 166 schools involved, price variations were inevitable as they followed local market conditions in each area.
Gus Ipul acknowledged that this model made procurement data non-uniform and needed tidying up for easy public understanding. He even asked his staff to reorganise the data to avoid confusion. “So that the general public can see it easily. This is called (socks) included, but there is separate budgeting, so it’s confusing,” he said.
Centralised Procurement Emerged in Later Stages
After the initial stage, the Ministry of Social Affairs reverted to a centralised procurement scheme through the General Bureau. This model was used mainly for subsequent waves of students in the phased programme: 1A (July 2025), 1B (August 2025), 1C (September-October 2025).
Additionally, procurement data on INAPROC shows budget values reaching tens of billions of rupiah for one type of shoe. However, as several types of shoes were provided to students, the overall total budget has not yet been explained in detail to the public.
Duplicate Sock Procurements
Gus Ipul once stated that socks were included in the shoe package. However, after Tempo found data on the official government procurement website, there was another sock procurement outside the socks already included in the shoe procurement package.
He then acknowledged the existence of that sock procurement. Gus Ipul said he had just learned that the separate procurement was carried out by the Ministry’s General Bureau and then distributed to students.
Procurement data tracing shows sock purchases were made in several different packages with a total value of around Rp 2.7 billion. This indicates that socks were not part of a single package with shoes from the beginning.
Criticism of Transparency and Scheme Confusion
Transparency International Indonesia researcher Agus Sarwono assessed the government’s explanations as technically confusing. He highlighted the differences between centralised procurement data and the practice of purchases said to be made by schools.
According to him, this narrative discrepancy is not merely miscommunication but has the potential to mislead the public and cover up governance issues. Agus also questioned the oversight mechanism if purchases were made in a dispersed manner at schools.