Parents of Indonesian children sickened by free school meals file police complaint

By Ananda Teresia

JAKARTA, Sept 11 (Reuters) – A police complaint has been filed by 60 parents of children who fell ill after consuming free meals funded by the Indonesian government, a mother representing the complainants said on Friday, the first legal challenge to President Prabowo Subianto’s flagship programme. 

The call to press criminal charges against Indonesia’s National Nutrition Agency is the latest blow to a scheme already hit by allegations of mismanagement, corruption, and over 50,000 cases of food poisoning. 

The complaint, filed on August 31 but shared with the media on Thursday, also reflects growing doubts about the financial and logistical viability of providing free meals to 83 million school children and pregnant mothers across the archipelago.

At least 300 students at several high schools in the region of Karo in North Sumatra fell sick, with some hospitalised, after consuming the free meals in mid-August, Fitri Sijabat, the mother who made the complaint, told Reuters.

The complaint is directed at the agency that oversees the programme as well as the kitchen that prepared the meals and schools which distribute the meals, said Aslia Sijabat, the parents’ lawyer. 

He told Reuters that no specific individual had been named, and nor was a specific criminal provision invoked. 

The complaint calls for an investigation into alleged negligence, the naming of suspects, the drawing up of criminal charges and a financial compensation package, Aslia said.

“No suspects have been named in similar incidents in other regions, which has created a sense of impunity for them,” Aslia said.

The police and the National Nutrition Agency did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. 

The parents are also preparing a separate lawsuit against the government and plan to file it with a district court soon, Aslia said, without giving an exact date. 

The Jakarta Post, a local newspaper, cited Karo police spokesperson Pedoman Maha as saying that investigators were awaiting the results of forensic tests on food samples conducted by the North Sumatra police forensic lab. 

They are also questioning students, teachers and a nutritionist as part of their investigation, he added. 

‘STOP THE PROGRAMME’

The case in Karo was one of many mass food-poisoning incidents reported across Indonesia in the past few weeks. Last week alone, more than 2,000 individuals in several provinces fell sick after eating free meals.

Fitri’s daughter, Agnes, 17, was forced to go to hospital after consuming the meal. She was discharged the next day but hospitalised again days later with nausea, itching and numbness. In the month since consuming the free meal, Agnes has been hospitalised four times, Fitri said.

“My hope is that (they) just stop the programme. Why waste the state budget if our children are ending up like this,” she added.

The initiative was one of Prabowo’s key campaign pledges and is the most expensive social programme on the books of the G20 economy, with its most recent budget set at 229 trillion rupiah ($13 billion).

However, it has had its budget cut and two programme chiefs have already been replaced, with one of them in police custody facing corruption charges.  

($1 = 17,610 rupiah)

(Reporting by Ananda Teresia; Editing by Gibran Peshimam and David Stanway)