Budiman Sudjatmiko: MBG Must Continue, It's a Campaign Promise

REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, SEMARANG – Issues within the Free Nutritious Meal (MBG) programme have surfaced one by one following the exposure of a corruption scandal involving senior officials at the National Nutrition Agency (BGN). Calls have circulated among the public for the MBG programme to be temporarily halted.

However, the Head of the Poverty Alleviation Acceleration Agency (BP Taskin), Budiman Sudjatmiko, disagrees with the proposal to stop the programme. Instead, he believes the MBG programme must continue despite the legal problems ensnaring its former leadership.

“It is a campaign promise. If it stops, then the President violates a promise, violates the law,” he said in Semarang on Friday.

He made the statement after attending a dialogue themed “Critical Towards a Golden or Anxious Indonesia? Reading Government Performance and the Direction of Indonesia’s Future” at the Faculty of Humanities (FIB) of Diponegoro University, Semarang.

According to him, if the MBG were halted, it would indeed violate the law, as well as break the campaign promise to improve the nutrition of schoolchildren championed by Prabowo.

On the other hand, he acknowledged that problems in the implementation of the MBG must be thoroughly criticised, but criticism of the MBG should be better directed towards improving management in each region.