Nadiem Makarim Denies Conspiracy Allegations in Chromebook Procurement Case Hearing
Jakarta — Former Minister of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology Nadiem Anwar Makarim denied allegations of involvement in a conspiracy in the matter of alleged corruption in the procurement of Chromebook devices.
This was conveyed by Nadiem whilst appearing as a key witness in proceedings at court on Tuesday, 10 March 2026. During the hearing, Nadiem asserted that he had never held secret meetings or engaged in any conspiracy relating to the educational device procurement project.
According to him, the indictment suggesting the existence of a conspiracy as referred to in Article 55 of the Criminal Code was not supported by clear evidence.
“There is absolutely nothing. There were no secret meetings during COVID to carry out this conspiracy. So if it is said that there was a cabal, where is the evidence? I myself am confused,” Nadiem stated during the hearing.
Nadiem explained that during his tenure as minister, his policy focus was to promote digital transformation in the education ecosystem through the strengthening of software, rather than on the procurement of hardware.
He also asserted that the procurement process, including the determination of the operating system specifications of devices, was not decided at the ministerial level. According to him, that authority lay with the Budget Authority User (KPA) and technical officials at the directorate general level.
In his testimony, Nadiem also explained the establishment of a technology team at the ministry, which he said was aimed at accelerating digital transformation in education, in line with the President’s directive in 2020.
He mentioned a number of technology professionals who were recruited who joined with a spirit of public service. In fact, Nadiem said, some of them were willing to accept salary reductions of almost half their previous income in order to work for the government.
“I want to demonstrate that these young people joined to serve the nation. The evidence is that they were willing to sacrifice almost half their salary to help our country,” he said.
During the hearing, Nadiem also provided clarification on three points of WhatsApp conversations that were included as part of the prosecutor’s indictment.
The statement “remove humans and replace with software,” according to him, referred to efforts to automate administrative processes that were previously manual in order to be more efficient. He gave examples of the implementation of digital systems in the ARKAS and MARKAS applications.
Meanwhile, the phrase “find internal change agents and empower them” was described as an effort to identify employees of integrity within the ministry to be given responsibility in the change project.