Budiman Sudjatmiko: Free Nutritious Meal Programme Must Continue Despite Legal Issues

Semarang (ANTARA) - Head of the Poverty Alleviation Acceleration Agency (BP Taskin) Budiman Sudjatmiko believes the Free Nutritious Meal (MBG) programme must continue despite legal issues ensnaring its former leadership at the National Nutrition Agency (BGN). “It is a campaign promise. If it stops, the President would be breaking his promise and violating the law,” he said in Semarang on Friday. He made the statement after attending a dialogue themed “Critical Towards Golden Indonesia or Anxious? Reading Government Performance and Indonesia’s Future Direction” at the Faculty of Humanities (FIB), Diponegoro University, Semarang. According to him, stopping MBG would breach the law and break the campaign pledge to improve schoolchildren’s nutrition championed by Prabowo. He acknowledged that problems in MBG’s implementation must be thoroughly criticised, but such criticism should be directed towards improving management in each region. He stressed the programme is necessary, given that some communities still suffer from malnutrition and face an era of change that leaves them lagging behind other nations. “I say our society is a malnourished society. Our society is facing a new era, and compared to other countries, we are still lagging behind,” he said. He noted that Indonesians are still behind in analogical thinking, reading ability, mathematics, and science. “Therefore, MBG is not only for schoolchildren but also for pregnant women. That is the intervention,” said the former activist and ex-chairman of the People’s Democratic Party (PRD). Responding to a student’s criticism that the MBG and Koperasi Merah Putih programmes are not pro-people, he disagreed. He argued that MBG and Kopdes are two priority programmes of President Prabowo Subianto that embody social justice values. He cited a visit to Sentolo Village, Kulonprogo, Yogyakarta Special Region, which has received the MBG programme, where he saw village children eating the meals as if they were luxury items. “I went to Sentolo, Kulonprogo, recently. Village children were eating luxurious food in the valley. When we were in primary school, we never ate that luxuriously,” he said.