Jakarta. A minister said Wednesday that a number of village heads had stolen government funds for online gambling, although the amount of misused money remains undisclosed.

Every year, the central administration would allocate a portion of the state budget to the sub-national governments, including those in villages. The village funds usually aims to alleviate poverty and improve local infrastructure, among others. This year alone, the government has earmarked Rp 71 trillion (around $4.3 billion) for 75,259 villages. This is the same amount that Indonesia had initially allocated for the multibillion dollar free meal program scheme. The village funds for the 2024 fiscal year was also around Rp 71 trillion, up from the Rp 70 trillion budget in the previous year. The village funds had totaled Rp 610 trillion over the past decade.

Village Minister Yandri Susanto, however, revealed that the local leaders had been gambling online using the government money. Yandri had reached out to the Attorney General's Office (AGO) to inform them on the findings. He had also visited the anti-graft commission KPK earlier this week. The minister said that his claims were based on evaluations of the village funds use in the past years, and did not include the 2025 spendings.

"It is true that we have discussed this matter with Attorney General [Sanitiar Burhanuddin]. We have made an evaluation of [village funds uses] over the past few years. We learnt that many of the village funds had been misused back then, particularly in 2024. Some village leaders had spent the money on online gambling and fake websites," Yandri told reporters at the AGO's headquarters in Jakarta.

Yandri refused to go into details on which local leader who had been splurging on gambling websites, and how much of the village fund had been lost to the illegal activity.

"But the financial intelligence agency PPATK have already informed us about the village heads' names, the misused funds total, and even when the crime took place. ... We have handed over [the details] to the legal authorities. Let them be the ones to make further investigations," Yandri said.

The minister's statement shows how bad online gambling addiction is in Indonesia. President Prabowo Subianto had told his administration to step up the crackdown on online gambling. As of Feb. 15, the Communications Ministry has blocked 993,114 online gambling content since the beginning of Prabowo's term in late October. PPATK claimed that online gambling transactions in Indonesia had topped Rp 283 trillion in 2024.

The government is now keeping a closer watch on village funds as the the so-called Merah Putih ('Red and White') Village Cooperatives program will kick off soon. Prabowo is planning to set up cooperatives in up to 80,000 villages across the country in an attempt to spur local economic growth and stabilize food prices. Each cooperative will get between Rp 3 billion and Rp 5 billion in initial capital to set up the necessary warehouses or cold storage, to name a few. The money will come from the village funds, state and regional budgets, as well as loans provided by the government-run banks. The program's launch is slated for July 12.

"We will launch the Merah Putih Village Cooperatives program soon. That means there will be more money and enterprises coming to the villages. Don't let a good program be misused," Yandri told the presser.

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