MP: Food Poisoning Cases in the Free Nutritious Meal Programme Severely Harm the Education Sector

Jakarta, VIVA – Several cases of food poisoning resulting from consuming meals provided by the Free Nutritious Meal Programme (MBG) continue to occur, with approximately 50 cases reported during January 2026.

A member of Commission IX of the Indonesian Parliament, Pulung Agustanto, has called on the administrators of the MBG to pay more attention to management practices to prevent similar incidents from recurring.

“How can we move towards providing nutritious meals when ensuring the meals are safe for consumption remains a problem?” said Pulung in a statement on Thursday, 26 February 2026.

According to Pulung, the National Nutrition Agency (BGN) must be more diligent in implementing management practices to ensure that this programme, which consumes nearly 10% of the national budget, does not cause hardship for its recipients.

“The national budget allocated to this programme is substantial. If the output still involves many problems, it is a significant waste,” said Pulung.

Furthermore, he added that most of the MBG’s funding comes from the education budget. This means that the MBG inevitably leads to many education programmes being underfunded.

Of the IDR 769 trillion education budget in the 2026 national budget, IDR 223 trillion is allocated to the MBG.

“The cases of food poisoning in various schools under the MBG have undoubtedly severely harmed our education sector,” he said.

Pulung added that the government’s grand goal of improving public nutrition through this programme may be well-intentioned. However, the management of the kitchens and the transparency of budget allocation are equally important.

“What is needed now is effective management, kitchen management, transparency in budget allocation, and various other technical aspects. It is not enough to simply have slogans about feeding the people,” he said.

Furthermore, Pulung believes that the success of the MBG cannot be measured solely by the number of beneficiaries. “It is pointless to focus on quantity if the quality remains a problem,” he concluded.