Lucky Alfirman, the ministry’s risk and financing management director general, revealed in a state budget press conference on Monday that the ministry had “unblocked” Rp 168.5 trillion (US$10.12 billion) of government funds previously reserved for the free meals program, which is implemented mainly through state schools, as well as for the newly created state asset fund Danantara.

President Prabowo Subianto issued a presidential instruction in January that, over the next couple of months, saw budgets of ministries and other state institutions cut by a total of Rp 250 trillion in a move billed as an “efficiency” measure.

A month later, the President said about 45 percent of the budget savings were set aside for Danantara and the rest for the free meals program, a key election campaign promise of the President’s, with the idea of allowing it to achieve full scale in this year’s second half.

The state budget plan for this year, formulated and passed into law last year by the previous administration, set Rp 71 trillion as the spending ceiling for the program, but the Prabowo administration allowed for an extra Rp 100 trillion to be spent on the program, as revealed by then-finance minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati in March.

However, the ministry revealed in Monday’s press conference that the program’s allocation was still the original Rp 71 trillion ceiling, as opposed to Rp 171 trillion, raising questions about the need for the massive fiscal maneuver initiated by Prabowo.

Finance Minister Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa, who was installed into office earlier this month, told reporters on Friday that he would “take the money [and] redistribute it to other places” in accordance with the ministry’s calculation on how much the free meals program would require for the remainder of the year.