Ministry of Cooperatives Assures No Insider Appointments in Recruitment of Red and White Village Cooperative Managers

The government assures that the selection process for managers of Village/Kelurahan Cooperatives (Kopdes/kel) Merah Putih is carried out openly and transparently. There are no practices of insider appointments (ordal) in the recruitment. Deputy Minister of Cooperatives Farida Farichah stated during a press conference at her office in Jakarta that the selection process is handled by a national selection committee (Panselnas) involving several institutions, with primary coordination under the State-Owned Enterprises Regulatory Body (BP BUMN) and technical implementation by the National Civil Service Agency (BKN). “There are none. It’s guaranteed there are no insider appointments. If there are people claiming there are appointments for a certain payment, that’s definitely a scam,” Farida said on Friday, 8 May 2026. Regarding reports of disruptions to the computer-assisted test (CAT) system in the cooperative manager selection, which have been widely shared by test participants on social media, the Deputy Minister stated that these reports have been coordinated with BKN and Panselnas under the Ministry of State Apparatus Empowerment and Bureaucratic Reform (PAN-RB). “Reports from social media have been coordinated with BKN and also Panselnas under PAN-RB… further explanations will certainly be provided by BKN as the technical implementer,” she said. The recruitment process for Red and White Village/Kelurahan Cooperative managers is currently in the competency test stage, taking place from 3-12 May 2026. A total of 483,648 applicants have passed the administrative selection and are eligible to participate in this stage. The government has scheduled the announcement of the final selection results on 7 June 2026. Participants declared successful will then undergo basic military training for the reserve component (Komcad), as well as managerial and field competency briefings as part of preparing human resources (SDM) for village cooperative managers.