KONTAN.CO.ID - JAKARTA, July 28 - The new head of an Indonesian government agency overseeing President Prabowo Subianto's ambitious multibillion-dollar plan to hand out free meals vowed on Wednesday to fix the scheme's lingering problems after a poll revealed a dramatic decline in public approval ratings.

A survey of 749 respondents conducted by pollster Saiful Mujani Research and Consulting (SMRC) between July 5 and July 19 showed that the level of public satisfaction with the free meals plan had fallen by 30 percentage points since a previous survey in November.

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Here are some details:

In the survey, only 33.8% of the respondents said they were satisfied with the $12.68 billion programme, which was launched in January 2025 and had been a key election promise of Prabowo. He took office in 2024.

The approval rating fell from 62.5% in a November survey and from 53.1% in a poll conducted from late February to early March, both conducted by SMRC.

When asked to respond to the poll, Sudaryono, the newly appointed chief of the National Nutrition Agency (NNA), said it would take care of the problems, though he did not provide details.

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Separately, the agency will work to improve transparency, including by building a system to allow parents to track the content of the menus, Sudaryono said after a meeting with a senior minister overseeing food.

Investors have been concerned about the programme's costs and the risk of a larger fiscal deficit.

Deni Irvani, SMRC executive director, said during an online briefing on Tuesday that several issues were behind the decline in public satisfaction with the scheme.

"Public confidence in the programme has been weakened by the recent arrest of National Nutrition Agency (NNA) officials over alleged corruption, as well as governance concerns and repeated food-poisoning cases," Irvani said.

Authorities arrested the chief of the NNA last month over corruption allegations and his replacement resigned last week on health grounds.

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Sudaryono has said he is cleaning up the running of the programme, and has closed kitchens that are not up to scratch.

Earlier this month, the government said it had further reduced the 2026 budget for the programme to 229 trillion rupiah ($12.68 billion) and said more cuts are possible.

In the SMRC poll, Prabowo's approval rating also fell to 51.1% in July, a drop from 81.2% in November 2025, with respondents citing worsening economic conditions.