New Faces Among BGN Officials as Agency Cleans Up Free Nutritious Meal Programme
The National Nutrition Agency (BGN) has sworn in five new officials to replace their predecessors. The appointment of these new officials is expected to strengthen the agency’s structure amid an ongoing clean-up of the Free Nutritious Meals (MBG) programme.
The new officials range from Secretary Main to Deputy for Monitoring and Oversight. BGN Deputy Head Agustina Arumsari and Trenggono introduced the five officials at a press conference at the BGN office in Central Jakarta on Tuesday (21 July 2026).
The following is the list of officials introduced:
Lili Khamiliyah as Secretary Main
Prima Yosephine Berliana Tumiur Hutapea as Deputy for Systems and Governance
Zainuri as Deputy for Provision and Distribution
Mariman Darto as Deputy for Promotion and Cooperation
Ketut Sumedana as Deputy for Monitoring and Oversight
Agustina said that human resources are a crucial element of the organisation running the Free Nutritious Meals (MBG) programme. The new BGN officials were appointed on the basis of a presidential decree issued by Prabowo Subianto.
“Yesterday afternoon we received the presidential decree appointing them as middle-ranking officials. We need a team to fix BGN and the free nutritious meals programme,” she said.
Among the new officials is a familiar name, Ketut Sumedana, former Head of the Legal Information Centre at the Attorney General’s Office. Agustina explained that Ketut has an impressive track record, having served in the prosecution service for 28 years. In addition, Ketut holds a doctorate in law.
“This one probably isn’t unfamiliar, since he was Kapuspenkum for a long time, right? Please welcome Dr Ketut Sumedana, SH, MH. Back when there were press conferences at the Attorney General’s Office, he was probably the one organising them,” said Agustina.
“Later, for instance, if there are incidents such as food poisoning and so on, he will be the one to see them directly, and he of course has a network across the whole of Indonesia as a former Attorney General’s Office official,” she continued.
Agustina also noted that Ketut’s experience in overseeing law enforcement during his time as a prosecutor is much needed. He will also be asked to identify potential irregularities and ensure regulatory compliance.
“And of course he will later handle monitoring and evaluation of the entire MBG programme, including operational standards. So this is roughly how the division of tasks will work — setting standards, how to ensure the programme hits its targets, SOPs and so on,” she explained.
BGN cleaning up MBG
BGN is currently carrying out a complete overhaul of MBG governance. During the evaluation process, Agustina revealed examples of problems found in the field, including one school being served by two kitchens, or SPPG.
“As an example, we found one school that turned out to be served by two different SPPGs. When that data was cross-checked against the dapodik (education database), we found discrepancies that we are still investigating,” said Agustina.
Findings like these are one of the reasons why the data validation process needs to be carried out thoroughly. Once all the data is truly clean and integrated, budget planning will also become more accurate.
Agustina acknowledged that the existing systems are not yet fully integrated. For this reason, BGN intends to fix the system so that matters can be known directly.
“One of the things we will push for is integration between the dapodik data and the MBG system, so that in real time we can know the number of children receiving MBG, which schools are receiving MBG, the distribution of beneficiaries, and monitoring of programme implementation,” she explained.
According to her, accurate data is essential to provide certainty, transparency and accountability in programme implementation. She mentioned that one of the key points from the existing evaluation is the need to open up greater transparency to the public through data that can be clearly monitored.
“In my view, this is extremely important and will be one of our main focuses,” she affirmed.