Indonesia’s bigger free meals budget to add 2 percentage points to growth, president’s adviser says

JAKARTA - Indonesia’s additional budget of 100 trillion rupiah (S$8.34 billion) for its programme to give free meals to schoolchildren this year will add nearly 2 percentage points to the country’s growth, an aide to President Prabowo Subianto said on Jan 31.

Mr Prabowo’s signature

free meal programme began earlier this month

and had initially targeted reaching about 17.5 million people this year, at a cost of 71 trillion rupiah. 

Indonesia’s gross domestic product growth target this year is 5.2 per cent.

Mr Hashim Djojohadikusumo, Mr Prabowo’s brother and close adviser, on Jan 31 told a forum the president had agreed to top up the budget by 100 trillion rupiah.  

Indonesia’s finance ministry said on Jan 30 the programme’s budget of 171 trillion would reach about 40 million people in 2025. The head of the agency running the project said two weeks ago that Mr Prabowo wanted the additional budget so that meals could be served to nearly 83 million people by year-end, more than a quarter of the population. 

The free school meals scheme helped deliver Mr Prabowo an

approval rating of nearly 81 per cent

in poll this month, based on his first 100 days in office. 

But financial markets in Indonesia have been concerned about the cost of the programme, the centrepiece of Mr Prabowo’s election campaign, warning that additional debt to fund it could affect the country’s recent hard-won reputation for fiscal prudence.

Mr Hashim said the extra budget would come from spending cuts that Mr Prabowo had ordered his government to make earlier this month.

Indonesia’s finance ministry said the spending cuts would amount to 306.7 trillion rupiah, equivalent to about 8 per cent of the total approved spending this year of 3,621.3 trillion rupiah. REUTERS