Nadiem Asserts His Tax Return is Unrelated to Chromebook Procurement
Jakarta - Former Minister of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology Nadiem Makarim has asserted that his Tax Notification Letter (SPT) has no connection whatsoever to the alleged corruption case in the procurement of Chromebook-based laptops.
“The question from the public is, what is the connection between the internal corporate transaction with Chromebook and Google? There is absolutely no connection,” said Nadiem when met during a break in the trial at the Jakarta Corruption Court on Monday (30/3/2026).
“What is the connection between my SPT and the Chromebook procurement? I reported all of that,” he added.
Nadiem questioned the reason why the public prosecutor opened his personal tax SPT data during the trial. It seemed as if there was manipulation of the data within it.
“All of my tax SPTs were displayed in front of the entire trial, my honesty in reporting everything openly without hiding anything is now being used to manipulate facts and just to be revealed,” Nadiem added.
“Alhamdulillah, it has been proven because all of my tax SPTs were revealed that there is no Rp 809 billion figure at all in all of my tax reports,” said Nadiem again.
Nadiem asserted that the Rp 809 billion is a transaction between PT Aplikasi Karya Anak Bangsa (PT AKAB, now renamed PT Gojek Tokopedia Tbk) and PT Gojek Indonesia.
“That transaction was fully returned to PT AKAB because there was a debt from PT GI. So, the Rp 809 billion was returned intact to PT AKAB,” said Nadiem.
In this case, former Minister of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology Nadiem Makarim along with three other defendants is said to have caused state financial losses amounting to Rp 2.1 trillion.
Nadiem is charged with enriching himself by Rp 809 billion. This figure is said to come from Google’s investment in Gojek or PT AKAB.
Nadiem is accused of misusing his authority, making Google the sole controller of IT procurement, one of which is laptops, in Indonesia’s technology ecosystem.
This was done by directing the procurement study to focus on one product, namely Chrome-based devices which are Google’s products.
Nadiem carried out this act together with three other defendants, namely former Technology Consultant in the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology, Ibrahim Arief; Director of SMP in the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology from 2020–2021 as well as Budget User Representative (KPA), Mulyatsyah; and Director of SD in the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology from 2020–2021 as well as KPA, Sri Wahyuningsih.
For their actions, Nadiem and the other defendants are threatened with Article 2 Paragraph (1) and Article 3 jo. Article 18 of Law No. 31 of 1999 as amended and supplemented by Law No. 20 of 2001 on Amendments to Law No. 31 of 1999 on the Eradication of Criminal Acts of Corruption jo. Article 55 paragraph (1) first of the Criminal Code.