Parliament Commission Chair: Free Nutritious Meals Using Education Budget is a Smart Strategy, Deserving of Appreciation

Jakarta — The chairman of the House of Representatives’ Commission XI, Mukhamad Misbakhun, has defended the government’s budgetary approach to the free nutritious meals programme (MBG), which draws from the education allocation in the 2026 state budget without any budgetary errors.

He addressed this matter amid growing criticism of the use of approximately Rp 223.5 trillion from the total Rp 769 trillion education allocation in the 2026 state budget for the MBG programme.

“The public must understand that the beneficiaries of MBG, targeted to reach nearly 84 million people, are predominantly children and students in schools across Indonesia,” Misbakhun said in a written statement on Thursday, 26 February 2026.

Misbakhun explained that the budgetary mechanism presents no contradiction because the MBG programme employs cross-cutting policy from a budgetary perspective. The government therefore employs a strategy of allocating budget functions according to beneficiary groups to strengthen budgetary function.

“This is in line with the ‘follow the programme’ approach, whereby budget allocation follows the function and role of the programme, since its function is to strengthen the nutrition of Indonesian children, most of whom are of school age,” he stated.

Misbakhun considered the budgetary mechanism for the MBG programme to be purely a budgetary allocation policy strategy. When government policy seeks to increase the number and strengthen the beneficiaries of MBG, the strategy and allocation policy becomes a cross-cutting budget policy.

“As an allocation strategy, this choice has been made and implemented. This is purely a matter of budgetary allocation strategy, which falls entirely within the government’s authority as the holder of the mandate to operationalise the state budget,” Misbakhun said.

“This budgetary strategy should actually be praised as a smart strategy rather than questioned and politicised as a budgetary misallocation,” he added.

He further emphasised that the education budget allocation increases every year as a constitutional mandate, representing 20 per cent of total spending in the state budget. Because the overall state budget volume increases annually, the education budget also rises accordingly. Therefore, he considered it excessive and disproportionate to pit the strategy of allocating a portion of the education budget to MBG against the development of educational infrastructure that remains lagging in certain regions.

“The government has never reduced the allocation for educational infrastructure spending; in fact, it has been strengthened with the initiation of community school development in many remote areas throughout Indonesia, with the Social Ministry serving as the technical driver,” Misbakhun said.