(July 22): The chief of Indonesia’s US$15 billion (RM61.33 billion) free meals programme has resigned for health reasons, the second leadership change at President Prabowo Subianto’s troubled signature social initiative in less than two months after her predecessor was removed in a corruption probe.
“With a heavy heart, I bid farewell to Mr President,” Nanik S Deyang wrote in a Facebook post Wednesday announcing her departure from the National Nutrition Agency, saying she was heading overseas to undergo heart-related medical treatment. She said Prabowo had accepted her resignation and had asked her to chair a possible supervisory board, which she’d consider “as long as it is not related to handling money”. She added “I swear I am acutely traumatised”, alongside three emojis of a grinning face.
State Secretary Prasetyo Hadi said Prabowo would appoint Sudaryono, now deputy minister of agriculture, as the agency’s chief later Wednesday. Sudaryono, who goes by one name, was chosen for his early involvement in the free meals programme as it was being designed, Hadi said. He is a long-time Prabowo loyalist.
Deyang’s abrupt departure extends the turmoil surrounding the multibillion-dollar social programme after the dismissal of Dadan Hindayana, who is embroiled in a graft investigation.
The free meals initiative has faced criticism since its debut last year for adding to fiscal strains in Southeast Asia’s largest economy and for a rushed rollout that has led to cases of food poisoning at schools. The programme, which aims to provide daily meals to more than 80 million students and mothers across the world’s fourth-most populous nation, has been under review since the graft allegations emerged last month.
The project has also drawn scrutiny from investors and ratings agencies as Indonesia’s budget deficit approaches its legal limit and the rupiah hovers near a record low amid higher oil prices and the rollout of Prabowo’s big-ticket initiatives. Nearly 10% of the national budget is devoted to the programme, although in recent months the government has been reducing spending targets — something S&P Global Ratings noted this month when it retained its investment-grade rating and stable outlook for the country.
Sudaryono’s expertise is in engineering, business and agriculture rather than nutrition, but his appointment puts a trusted member of the president’s inner circle in charge of stabilising the programme.
He worked as Prabowo’s personal assistant for five years from 2010 and has said the two lived under the same roof. A top graduate of Taruna Nusantara, the elite state-backed boarding school known for producing many of Indonesia’s military officers and public officials, he later studied mechanical engineering at Japan’s National Defense Academy before rising through Prabowo’s Gerindra party and becoming deputy agriculture minister, according to his website.
The free meals initiative has also recently been caught up in tensions among Indonesia’s law-enforcement agencies. The graft probe into the programme, led by the Attorney General’s Office, earlier this month named an active police brigadier general as a suspect. Days later, police raided locations in and around Jakarta, uncovering millions of dollars’ worth of gold bars and cash. The developments culminated in the resignation of a deputy attorney general.
Dirgayuza Setiawan, a special assistant to the president, said in an Instagram post that Deyang had uncovered various problems with the free meals project and laid the foundation for reform by identifying problematic kitchens and refocusing on the neediest beneficiaries. He confirmed that the president had asked her to continue in some sort of oversight position, without elaborating.
Deyang, a former journalist and media manager who had a role in Prabowo’s last two election campaigns, assumed leadership of the nutrition agency in early June with plans for a wide-ranging review of thousands of kitchens and partners. She announced a moratorium on establishing new kitchens as the agency sought to tighten the screening process for applicants, and said the agency would explore alternative funding sources, including grants and corporate social responsibility funds.
In a separate Facebook post, Deyang said the stress of managing the nutrition agency — and watching over its immense budget — had taken a physical toll. Until she attended a cabinet meeting this week, she wrote, she had been bedridden for nine days, including a week in the hospital, leading to the discovery of a blocked artery. Her doctor had told her it was caused by high cholesterol and extreme stress, she added.
“I lead an institution that everyone sneers at because everyone knows...” she wrote, adding that overseeing the size of the programme’s budget had caused her “acute trauma”.
Looking after such large sums of public money and making sure it’s spent property “is like standing on the edge of a steep cliff”, she said. “One small misstep and you could plunge to your death.” She said she had avoided signing documents at the agency until both her deputies had initialled them.
She also apologised for not being reachable by mobile phone, saying she’d discarded her old number. “I’m tired of being harassed from all sides,” she wrote.
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