JAKARTA — Indonesia’s President Prabowo Subianto has sacked Dadan Hindayana, the head of the agency responsible for his flagship free meals program that has been plagued by mass food poisonings and corruption allegations.
Investigators from the Attorney General’s office raided the headquarters of the National Nutrition Agency, which is in charge of the free meals program, in the early hours of Wednesday immediately after Dadan was fired.
The move comes a week after Indonesia’s corruption watchdog filed a complaint alleging inconsistencies in budgeting across kitchens.
A spokesman for the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) confirmed the raid to Reuters in a text message, but declined to comment on what investigators were probing.
Two sources, requesting anonymity, told Reuters that AGO personnel raided the building at 02:00 Jakarta time on Wednesday (19:00 GMT Tuesday night) in multiple vehicles.
The building remained under lockdown at 1100 (0100 GMT), and employees who were meant to report for duty were not allowed to enter the premises.
Employees sitting outside the building said they were unsure of what was happening. One said the raid took place on the second floor of the building, where the agency’s top leadership sits.
The decision to remove Dadan followed an evaluation of the agency’s performance, state secretariat minister Prasetyo Hadi told reporters late on Tuesday.
Dadan, an entomologist, will be replaced by his deputy, Nanik Sudaryati Deyang, who is a former journalist and was part of Prabowo’s campaigning team in the 2024 election.
Prabowo himself has come under fire over the program, especially for its hefty price tag at a time when Indonesia is grappling with dwindling trade surpluses and a weak currency.
The nutrition scheme was a key part of Prabowo’s campaign to win the presidency in 2024, and the government has budgeted at least $15 billion for an ambitious bid to provide free meals to 83 million children and pregnant women across the sprawling archipelago.
The program was recently scaled back – from six days a week to five – as authorities sought to mitigate the financial impact of the US-Israel war on Iran.
Some critics have called for the program to be suspended altogether.
While some Indonesians supported the change in leadership, others believe this is a cosmetic move that will not make a significant difference.
“What needs right now isn’t just swapping people, but a total overhaul of the concept and system. Without that, it’ll just keep being a source of problems,” wrote X user Ahmad Arif.
Others pointed out that Nanik has neither experience in nutrition nor food safety.
The free meals program has been linked to at least 33,000 food poisoning cases as of April, according to local non-governmental organisation Network for Education Watch.
In addition to the mass poisoning cases, Dadan has also been criticized for making controversial statements, such as his suggestion that each person should drink two liters of milk daily and his proposal to use insects and sago worms in the free meals.
Prabowo has acknowledged that the scheme was beset “with many problems”. In a speech last month, he vowed to take action against anyone who “violates the rules… [or] abuses their authority”.
Source: Saudi Gazette