KPK Identifies 8 Key Findings in MBG Governance Review, Calls for Improvements

The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) has conducted a review and monitoring of the Free Nutritious Meals (MBG) programme. The KPK has identified eight points that require improvement in the MBG’s governance.

These eight findings from the KPK were outlined by the KPK’s Monitoring Directorate. The KPK explained that the immense scale of the programme and its budget are not matched by adequate regulatory frameworks, governance structures, and oversight mechanisms.

“This creates risks to accountability, conflicts of interest, inefficiencies, and the potential for corruption in its implementation,” stated the KPK’s Monitoring Directorate, as observed on Friday (17/4/2026).

Here are the eight KPK findings related to MBG governance:

1. Regulations for implementing MBG are inadequate, particularly in governing the programme’s management from planning, execution, to cross-ministerial/institutional and local government oversight.

2. Implementing MBG through the Government Assistance (Banper) mechanism creates risks of extended bureaucratic chains, potential rents, and reduced budget allocation for food ingredients due to deductions for operational and rental costs.

3. The centralistic approach with BGN as the sole actor sidelines the role of local governments and weakens check-and-balance mechanisms in determining partners, kitchen locations, and oversight.

4. High potential for conflicts of interest (CoI) in selecting SPPG/kitchen partners due to centralised authority and unclear SOPs.

5. Weak transparency and accountability, especially in verifying and validating partner foundations, determining kitchen locations, and financial reporting and accountability.

6. Many kitchens do not meet SPPG technical standards, impacting cases of food poisoning in various regions.

7. Food safety oversight is not optimal, with minimal involvement of Health Agencies and BPOM according to their mandates.

8. No success indicators for the MBG programme, either short-term or long-term, and no baseline measurements of nutritional status and academic achievements of beneficiaries.

The KPK then provided recommendations for the MBG programme, namely:

• Drafting comprehensive and binding MBG implementation regulations, at least at the level of a Presidential Regulation, to govern planning, execution, oversight, and role distribution across ministries/institutions and local governments.

• Reviewing the Government Assistance mechanism, including cost structures, implementation chains, and the reasonableness of budget components, to avoid rents and reduce nutritional service quality.

• Implementing a collaborative and limited decentralised approach, strengthening local governments’ roles in determining beneficiaries, kitchen locations, and operational oversight.

• Clarifying SOPs and SLAs for selecting partner foundations/SPPG, ensuring transparent and accountable selection, verification, and validation processes.

• Strengthening food safety oversight through active involvement of Health Agencies and BPOM in certification, kitchen inspections, and food quality monitoring.

• Building a standard financial reporting and verification system to prevent fictitious reports, mark-ups, and fund disbursement deviations.

• Establishing measurable MBG success indicators, accompanied by baseline measurements of nutritional status and beneficiary achievements as a basis for ongoing programme impact evaluation.