The Attorney General’s Office (AGO) has named a fourth suspect in the alleged corruption case regarding the management of the Nutritious Free Meal (MBG) program at the National Nutrition Agency (BGN) for the 2025–2026 fiscal year. This legal step marks a new chapter amidst the government’s massive efforts to conduct internal reforms of the national program following various findings of budgetary irregularities and an inflation of operational points in the field.
The Director of Investigation for the Junior Attorney General for Special Crimes, Syarief Sulaeman Nahdi, revealed that the newly arrested suspect is from the private sector, identified by the initials AYS or Asep Yusuf Somantri. Suspect AYS is known to be a confidant of Sony Sonjaya, the former Deputy Head of BGN, who had previously been named a suspect in the same corruption scandal.
“On Saturday, June 6, 2026, the investigation team named one more person as a suspect, AYS, from the private sector,” said Syarief Sulaeman Nahdi at the AGO’s “Gedung Bundar” in Jakarta, Thursday, June 11, 2026, as quoted by Antara.
Syarief explained that AYS was asked by Sony Sonjaya to find partners for the implementation of the MBG program. Sony allegedly provided special access to AYS to intervene with the MBG partner verification team in order to identify empty kitchen locations and manipulate the registration process for prospective Nutrition Fulfillment Service Units (SPPG). As a result of this intervention, a number of officially approved registrations were unilaterally canceled.
“And brother AYS facilitated SPPG registrations even though the registration portal had been closed,” added Syarief. After arranging these SPPG points, AYS unlawfully provided a sum of money as a reward to Sony Sonjaya. For his actions, AYS is now detained for the next 20 days at the Salemba Detention Center, South Jakarta District Attorney’s Branch.
The naming of AYS brings the total number of suspects to four, following the previous detention of former BGN Head Dadan Hindayana and two former Deputy Heads of BGN, Lodewyk Pusung and Sony Sonjaya. This corruption scandal runs parallel to the exposure of the chaotic program management at the coordinating ministry level.
One-Month Evaluation
Coordinating Minister for Food, Zulkifli Hasan, confirmed the existence of massive irregularities in the field, including suspected practices of trading SPPG points. This triggered an inflation in the number of kitchens, which were originally planned for only 21,000 agglomeration points, but surged drastically to reach 27,877 points. This increase of 6,877 points is estimated to have caused a waste of state funds amounting to Rp 12 trillion annually due to the kitchen incentive of Rp 6 million per day.
Therefore, the government emphasized that there will be no new MBG kitchen operations during the total reform period, which is targeted to be completed within this month. The strict evaluation will target kitchen sanitation quality and a re-mapping process so that elite schools will no longer receive assistance; instead, it will be fully diverted to underdeveloped regions, such as the 3T (frontier, outermost, and underdeveloped) areas.
“There will be nothing new during this restructuring. We are prioritizing reorganization. We are currently fixing internal issues first,” said Zulkifli, Thursday, June 11, 2026.
However, the turmoil surrounding this program also sparked rumors implicating members of the cabinet. The Presidential Chief of Staff, Dudung Abdurachman, firmly denied rumors suggesting that he owns or manages commercial projects from the SPPG in this national program. Dudung clarified that he only served to bridge the aspirations of Islamic boarding school caretakers who hoped their students would gain access to free nutrition, and then introduced them to Dadan when he was still serving as Head of BGN.
“I wish to inform and emphasize that I do not own any of the program’s kitchens at all,” said Dudung.
