Investigators search Indonesian free meals agency after its leader was fired

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JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesian investigators searched the National Nutrition Agency’s offices Wednesday a day after the president fired the head of the agency responsible for his troubled free meals program.

It wasn't clear whether the search by agents of the Attorney General’s Office was tied to a criminal investigation.

The program delivered on a campaign promise of President Prabowo Subianto and aimed to fight malnutrition by feeding nearly 90 million children and pregnant women. But it has come under steep criticism due to high costs and cases of food poisoning among schoolchildren who ate the meals.

Prabowo fired the agency’s chief Dadan Hindayana on Tuesday evening and replaced him with Nanik S. Deyang, who was the deputy of the chief.

“Some issues relate to discipline in following standard operating procedures, while others relate to discipline in implementing governance, including discipline in maintaining food quality as stipulated by the National Nutrition Agency,” Minister of the State Secretariat Prasetyo Hadi said.

He emphasized the government was committed to the free meals program despite the leadership transition. "Services to the public must not be disrupted in any way,” Hadi told reporters Tuesday after the firing.

The investigators from the Attorney General’s Office searched the agency’s office building through the day Wednesday, locking out its employees.

“We are still in the process of searching at the National Nutrition Agency,” said Mochamad Jeffry, the office's acting spokesperson. He did not disclose what case was being investigated in connection with the search.

The meals program is expected to cost $28 billion through 2029. Prabowo aimed to fight malnutrition and help farmers by purchasing their harvests, but critics had questioned whether the program was affordable and logistically possible in a vast archipelago of more than 282 million people.