DPR: Free Nutritious Meal Programme Should Focus on Nutrition, not Motorcycles and iPads

The chairman of the Budget Committee of the Indonesian House of Representatives, Said Abdullah, has emphasised that the Free Nutritious Meal programme should be focused on fulfilling public nutrition, not on procuring goods unrelated to the programme. Said made the statement in response to the naming of a suspect and the detention of former Head of the National Nutrition Agency Dadan Hindayana. “I have said time and again to focus on free nutritious meals, not on incentives, not on motorcycles, not on iPads, as those have no connection whatsoever,” Said told reporters at the Parliament Complex in Senayan, Central Jakarta, on Thursday, 4 June 2026. Said admitted that from the outset he had repeatedly stated that the National Nutrition Agency’s weakness lay in its governance aspect. “Since the beginning, I have repeatedly said that the weakness of the National Nutrition Agency as a priority programme relied upon by the President is in its governance aspect,” he said. It was previously reported that the Attorney General’s Office finally named former Head of the National Nutrition Agency Dadan Hindayana as a suspect in a case of alleged corruption involving the buying and selling of Nutrition Fulfilment Service Unit points on Wednesday, 3 June 2026. This naming marks the culmination of a series of investigations that had previously been followed by a search of the National Nutrition Agency office in Kebon Sirih, Central Jakarta. Dadan himself was subsequently questioned and immediately taken away by investigators from the Junior Attorney General for Special Crimes wearing the distinctive pink detainee vest of the Attorney General’s Office. The case implicating the name of the former high-ranking National Nutrition Agency official previously surfaced after Attorney General’s Office investigators conducted a search starting in the morning at the agency’s office. From that location, investigators are believed to have gathered a number of findings pointing to the practice of buying and selling Nutrition Fulfilment Service Unit points within the national nutrition fulfilment programme. In addition to Dadan, the Attorney General’s Office has also named and detained Deputy Head of the National Nutrition Agency Sony Sonjaya and Lodewyk Pusung as suspects.