Prabowo: I Am Attacked for Wanting to Provide Nutritious Meals

President Prabowo Subianto has claimed that he is being attacked for wanting to provide nutritious food for the Indonesian people. The Head of State remarked that many parties consider his flagship project, the Free Nutritious Meal programme (MBG), a waste of money. Prabowo made the statement while delivering a briefing at a Plenary Cabinet Session at the State Palace in the Presidential Palace complex in Jakarta. “I am attacked because I want to provide nutritious food for Indonesian children, for pregnant women, for the elderly; it is considered wasteful,” Prabowo said on Monday afternoon, 20 July 2026. The Chairman of the Gerindra Party admitted he was baffled that the MBG project was called wasteful, yet there were no protests over the leakage of state wealth over the past several decades. “But thousands of trillions that evaporated, that left Indonesian soil every year for 34 years, there were no comments. No experts protested. No investigations,” Prabowo stated. According to Prabowo, the MBG aims to feed Indonesian children to overcome malnutrition. “We want to feed children, when clearly at least a quarter of our children are stunted,” he said. The former Minister of Defence under President Joko Widodo highlighted that many children still do not eat breakfast before leaving for school. He reiterated his astonishment that this objective was being called wasteful. “Most of them also do not, many do not eat before going to school. We are accused of wastefulness. We are told the economy is going to collapse. Share prices will plummet, the currency will weaken. The reason is because it is wasteful,” Prabowo said.