Government Focuses on Improving MBG Program Governance

JAKARTA-The government has confirmed its commitment to improving the governance of the MBG (Free Nutritious Meals) Program, which has become an important initiative in developing the community’s economy and empowering human resources in various sectors.

Coordinating Minister for Food, Zulkifli Hasan, revealed that he had received a report from the National Nutrition Agency regarding a number of problems that occurred in President Prabowo Subianto’s flagship program. Although it only reached 0.005 percent of the total 3.4 million participants, the government remains committed to improving the governance of the Free Nutritious Meals program.

“We will focus more on this, with the target of reducing incidents to zero,” said Zulhas.

The governance of the Free Nutritious Meals program will continue to be improved. This is due to the large amount of work involved in the program. Improving governance and reducing incidents aims to achieve the target of 82.9 million beneficiaries. Therefore, to formulate better governance, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of State Apparatus Empowerment will be involved

“Echelon one of the relevant ministries will be supported by various stakeholders. The Ministry of Finance will be involved to ensure the smooth running of the budget, while the Ministry of State Apparatus Empowerment/Bureaucratic Reform will play a role in providing the necessary manpower.” Zulhas said

He also added that local governments, including regents and governors, will be directly involved in supporting this program.

“This role must be formulated clearly because this is a very urgent and important main program. Later, these roles will be regulated in a presidential regulation or presidential instruction,” Zulhas continued.

Head of BGN Dadan Hindayana stated that the existence of a presidential regulation regulating MBG will also support the budget for this priority program. The amount of budget and the scheme used to accelerate MBG are currently still under discussion.

“Now we are still educating 30,000 SPPIs who will only be completed by the end of July. So, to organize the Free Nutritious Meal program until July, we can only serve approximately 6 million people,” he said.

With these strategic steps, the government hopes to ensure the sustainability and effectiveness of the MBG program in meeting the nutritional needs of the community fairly and evenly.