Coordinating Minister Muhaimin: Free Nutritious Meal Programme Governance Reform Must Refer to DTSEN

Coordinating Minister for Community Empowerment Muhaimin Iskandar has stressed that management improvements to the Free Nutritious Meal (MBG) Programme must refer to the National Single Socio-Economic Data (DTSEN) to empower poor and extremely poor citizens. In executing the MBG management improvements being carried out by the National Nutrition Agency (BGN), the minister reminded them to refer to Presidential Instruction Number 4 of 2025 on the National Single Socio-Economic Data, wherein disadvantaged regions, extreme poverty, and poverty are priorities that must be prioritised in providing benefits to recipients listed within the DTSEN, said Muhaimin Iskandar in Jakarta on Thursday. The Coordinating Minister asserted that MBG governance reforms must also refer to Presidential Instruction Number 8 of 2025 on overcoming poverty and extreme poverty, which contains two points directly related to the MBG. Firstly, priority recipients must be the poor and extremely poor. Secondly, priority is to be given to the ecosystem for empowering the poor. Meanwhile, Coordinating Minister for Food Zulkifli Hasan expressed a commitment to reorganise the MBG Programme within one month. It needs time for restructuring, yes. One month. One month of restructuring, said Zulhas, as Zulkifli Hasan is familiarly known. Within one month, Minister Zulhas committed to structuring and fixing Nutritional Fulfilment Service Unit (SPPG) points that had been traded, mapping MBG recipient schools, improving kitchen quality, and verifying reports on MBG beneficiaries. Minister of State Secretary Prasetyo Hadi confirmed that one direction of governance reform concerns the closure of SPPG units that do not comply with Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) or if there is an excess of MBG kitchens in one area. The direction will certainly go there (closure), but we cannot say today whether they are closed or not; it is still being structured, we need to look and take stock of the conditions as they are. So, we also cannot draw conclusions just referring to numbers; the conditions vary, and we will examine them individually, said Minister of State Secretary Prasetyo Hadi.