The new finance minister's test is making the money work

Suahasil Nazara took the finance job last month and described it as nothing new. "In my view, this is not a change, but simply a continuation," he said. He has reason to say so: an economics professor at Universitas Indonesia, he ran the ministry's own policy research agency, worked on the national poverty reduction team, and has been vice finance minister since 2019. Writing for the Lowy Institute's Interpreter, Hilman Palaon knew him from that poverty work and remembers a man who asked the unglamorous questions. Who exactly benefits, how does the money reach them, and what happens when the system gets it wrong?

That is the test, because Palaon's argument is that Prabowo's programmes fail at delivery rather than at design. The free nutritious meals scheme, MBG, is the clearest case: repeated food poisoning in schools, and the former head of the National Nutrition Agency arrested along with senior officials in a corruption investigation. Suahasil does not run MBG. But the Finance Ministry holds its budget and watches how that money is spent, which is a lever he can pull without being in charge of the kitchens.

Subsidies are the harder half. Cheap fuel, cooking gas and electricity reach anyone who buys them, including households that could pay full price, so economists call them inefficient. Suahasil defends them anyway as a way to hold energy prices and household spending power steady, while insisting the support has to find the right people. The approved 2027 budget already cuts energy subsidy spending by 6 per cent. The tool meant to replace the blunt version is DTSEN, a single national database covering 95.3 million households, due to be linked to bank accounts by the end of this year, with trials of direct digital payments early next year. The World Bank's warning is that clean data alone will not do it: reform also needs gradual price moves and openness about where the saved money goes.

Why it matters

If your household buys subsidised LPG or petrol, or receives state aid, this office is deciding whether cheap-for-everyone becomes cash-for-a-list. It is worth checking now that your household is recorded correctly in the national data, because that list, not your need, decides who gets paid. Watch the digital transfer trials early next year, since a wrong entry means the help arrives at someone else's door and the fix takes months.