Jakarta (VNA) – An Indonesian anti-corruption court on June 30 sentenced former education minister and Gojek co-founder Nadiem Makarim to 10 years for causing state losses in a case involving the procurement of Chromebook laptops during his time in office.
According to the court, the procurement scheme caused state losses of about 120 million USD. In addition to the prison sentence, Nadiem was fined 1 billion IDR (about 55,800 USD) and ordered to pay 809 billion IDR in restitution. Failure to make the repayment will result in additional imprisonment as stipulated by law.
Nadiem, once regarded as a symbol of Indonesia's technology startup boom, co-founded the ride-hailing platform Gojek in 2010 before becoming one of the youngest members of the previous administration's cabinet, serving as education minister from 2019 to 2024.
Prosecutors argued that the decision to procure Chromebooks running Google's ChromeOS was linked to Google's investment in Gojek, resulting in significant losses to the state budget. They had sought an 18-year prison sentence and a fine of 5.6 trillion IDR.
Rejecting all allegations, Nadiem maintained that the Chromebook programme reduced costs and claimed the case stemmed from errors in the investigation. In his defence, he argued that experts and witnesses had confirmed there were no state losses, no illicit enrichment and no criminal intent. His legal team said it would appeal the verdict./.
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