Luhut Reports MBG Programme Survey Results to Prabowo: What Are the Findings?
National Economic Council (DEN) Chairman Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan reported to President Prabowo Subianto on the survey results covering hundreds of Nutritional Service Fulfilment Unit (SPPG) points for the Free Nutritious Meals (MBG) programme. Luhut stated that the independent survey by DEN was conducted across 800 SPPG points.
“After we were summoned by the President, I believe the first explanation was the survey results conducted by the Economic Council regarding the implementation of the nutritious meals programme we carried out at 800 points, done truly professionally. So we at DEN must, and do, carefully guard our credibility, and we reported that to the President in detail,” Luhut said after the meeting on Tuesday (9/6/2026).
DEN member Septian Hario Seto explained that the survey was conducted randomly in various regions, such as South Nias, Halmahera, and Papua. Seto said the survey showed positive results, indicating that each SPPG has at least one small supplier.
“As the Chairman conveyed earlier, there are 800 points we selected through random sampling. So it was the computer that chose the samples. Thus, there are some in South Nias, some in Halmahera, some in Papua, and all sorts of places,” Seto said.
“So this can be described as representing the total overall population of existing SPPGs. The first positive result we observed is that 86.9% of current SPPGs have at least one small supplier. These are MSMEs located near the SPPG site,” he continued.
Seto stated that, on average, an SPPG has three MSMEs acting as suppliers. This demonstrates that the MBG programme’s implementation aligns with Prabowo’s desire for a local supplier ecosystem to take shape.
“Calculated on average, there are 3 MSMEs partnered with each SPPG. This proves that the MBG programme, besides achieving the President’s goal of improving the nutrition of Indonesian children, is also creating a new supply chain ecosystem. What is more interesting is that around 64-65% of these MSMEs are located within the same regency as the SPPG,” he said.
Furthermore, Seto added that the survey findings show local human resources are being empowered as workers in the programme’s implementation.
“Our third finding concerns the workforce: almost 99% are indeed local residents. Satisfaction with the performance of these MSMEs is also quite high, reaching above approximately 70%,” he said.
Nevertheless, Seto noted there are matters requiring the government’s attention. One is the provision of capital assistance to the MSMEs supplying the SPPGs.
“Indeed, there are several things that can be improved, especially capital assistance for these MSMEs. So they can have better working capital, ultimately enabling them to serve the SPPGs more extensively and with a greater variety of commodities,” Seto said.
“We also see this as one of the drivers behind why our growth reached 5.61% yesterday,” he concluded.
It is known that Luhut met with Prabowo at the Palace on Tuesday afternoon. He was accompanied by several DEN members, namely Chatib Basri, Septian Hario Seto, and Firman Hidayat.