Former Kemendikbudristek Director in Nadiem Trial: 'I Was Set Up'

Former director of the SMP (secondary schools) within the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology (Kemendikbudristek), Mulyatsyah, has testified that he felt he had been set up, ultimately becoming a defendant in a case over the procurement of Chromebook-based laptops at Kemendikbudristek.

Mulyatsyah made the claim while testifying as a witness in a continuation hearing of the alleged Chromebook-based laptop procurement case against the defendant, former Mendikbudristek minister Nadiem Makarim.

‘I feel I was set up,’ Mulyatsyah said at the session at Jakarta’s Corruption Court (Pengadilan Tipikor Jakarta) on Friday, 6 March 2026.

Mul explained that during the investigation he was asked about Ministerial Regulation Number 11 of 2020 on the Operational Guidelines for the Special Allocation Fund (DAK) Physical Education sector.

Mul, who is now a defendant in the case, said he became angry and cried when asked that question.

‘I was angry and I cried. Crying isn’t that I’m being emotional; I felt that, since I started my duties, I did not know this at all. And no one ever told me that there was Ministerial Regulation 11,’ Mul said.

In the session, Nadiem’s legal counsel noted that procurement at the Kemendikbudristek level has a different funding source than the DAK allocated to regions.

However, he insisted that Ministerial Regulation 11/2020 should also have been known to him.

‘Certainly not (any link between Ministerial Regulation 11 and the procurement), because that is DAK for regions. Yes. But what surprised me is that there is something above Ministerial Regulation that already regulates that, but some of us did not know,’ Mul said.

According to Mul, if he had known the regulation, the procurement process would have been more mature and there would not have been so many clashes.

In this case, Nadiem Makarim is charged with causing state financial losses amounting to Rp 2.1 trillion in the alleged Chromebook-based laptop procurement case.

The act was carried out together with three other defendants, namely former Kemendikbudristek technology consultant Ibrahim Arief, former SMP Director Kemendikbudristek Mulyatsyah, and former Primary School Director Kemendikbudristek Sri Wahyuningsih.

The calculation of state losses is split into two components: the Chromebook-based laptop procurement and the Chrome Device Management (CDM) procurement.