Former Indonesian minister and startup hero jailed for Chromebook buys

Legal

Nadiem Makarim vows to appeal sentence given he was found not to have profited from $600 million laptops-for-schools program

An Indonesian corruption court has sentenced the nation’s former education minister Nadiem Makarim, who is also a hero of the nation’s tech startup scene, to ten years in jail for his role in buying a stack of Chromebooks.

Nadiem is a co-founder of Gojek, a so-called superapp that offers ride share, food delivery, digital payments, and even logistics services. In 2021, Gojek merged with its rival Tokopedia. The combined entity became a ubiquitous part of daily life in Indonesia and other southeast Asian nations.

In 2019, Gojek’s success and prominence saw then-Indonesian-president Joko Widodo ask Nadiem to become Education Minister, with a remit to improve the nation’s schools. Nadiem took the job but kept a minority stake in Gojek during his time in government.

During his time as minister, Nadiem oversaw a $600 million program to acquire laptops for use in schools. Departmental officials compared Chromebooks to Windows laptops and found the latter performed better, because Google’s machines need constant internet access which isn’t available in much of the sprawling Indonesian archipelago.

The Ministry nonetheless decided to order Chromebooks because they are cheaper than Windows machines.

As the laptop program rolled out, observers noted that Google has invested in Gojek, and that the two companies had collaborated on various projects. Some saw that as suggesting a possibility that the decision to acquire Chromebooks might not have been motivated by technical merit and cost factors alone.

Prosecutors eventually decided to pursue a case on the basis that the decision to acquire Chromebooks cost Indonesia over $100 million in avoidable costs.

The matter went to trial and was decided on Tuesday, when a majority of judges found Nadiem guilty of improper conduct as minister – but not of personally profiting from the Chromebook procurement.

The former minister has vowed to appeal and described the judgement as deeply flawed given that the decision to purchase Chromebooks was made at arm’s length and because he did not personally benefit from the program.

Some see the affair as an example of established power brokers in Indonesia flexing their muscle against an emerging bloc of technocratic reformers. That bloc has lost influence since Widodo’s term as President ended. Under that interpretation, prosecuting the Singapore-born, Harvard-educated Nadiem is a significant exercise of old guard power.

Another view is that the affair is so tawdry, it shows Indonesia remains a very difficult nation in which to do business and that if even a local hero can be brought low, foreign tech companies may struggle to make inroads. ®