Reasons Nadiem Brought Personal Team for Digitalisation Programme Procurement: Ministry of Education Staff Incompetent
Jakarta VIVA – Education, Culture, Research, and Technology Minister for the 2019–2024 period, Nadiem Anwar Makarim, stated that he brought in a personal team for the procurement of the digitalisation programme because the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology staff lacked the competence to create applications.
Nadiem said that building various applications requires a level of competence that can only be obtained from people who have experience in creating large-scale applications.
“That is the function of the technology team, Wartek Team, or whatever it is called, GovTech and so on, to realise the President’s vision in the digitalisation of education, and the results are very clear: the creation of applications used by millions of teachers,” Nadiem said during the defendant’s examination hearing at the Corruption Court at the Central Jakarta District Court on Monday.
He explained that in the first full cabinet meeting, there was a special directive from the 7th President of the Republic of Indonesia, Joko Widodo, to the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology to implement the role of technology in education, one of which was by building application platforms.
Although the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology has many employees with various abilities and competencies, Nadiem assessed that at that time, there were no staff who had the competence to build large-scale applications with global standards.
Moreover, Indonesia’s education system is the fourth largest in the world, so building applications requires competence from parties who have experience in creating large-scale applications.
“So, this is the reason I brought in talented, idealistic young people to create various software because that competence was not available in the ministry,” he said.
In the alleged corruption case of the education digitalisation programme in the form of the procurement of Chromebook laptops and Chrome Device Management (CDM) within the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology from 2019 to 2022, Nadiem is charged with corruption that harms the state finances by Rp2.18 trillion.
The corruption is alleged to have been committed, among others, by carrying out the procurement of information and communication technology-based learning facilities in the form of Chromebook laptops and CDM for the 2020, 2021, and 2022 fiscal years not in accordance with the procurement planning and procurement principles.
Nadiem’s actions are charged as being committed jointly with three other defendants in separate trials, namely Ibrahim Arief alias Ibam, Mulyatsyah, and Sri Wahyuningsih, as well as Jurist Tan, who is currently still at large.