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Resty Woro Yuniar

Indonesia’s former education minister Nadiem Makarim, one of the country’s best-known tech founders, has been sentenced to 10 years in prison after a Jakarta court found him guilty of abusing his authority in a corruption case linked to US$87 million in state losses.
The verdict against the Gojek co-founder could unsettle business sentiment and dampen foreign investment appetite in Southeast Asia’s biggest economy, adding to concerns about legal certainty in cases involving government procurement and the technology sector, observers said.
Nadiem co-founded ride-hailing giant Gojek in 2010 and served as its chief executive until 2019, when he resigned to join former president Joko Widodo’s second-term cabinet as education minister.
On Tuesday, a five-judge panel at the Jakarta Corruption Court found the 41-year-old guilty of abuse of authority regarding the procurement of more than 1 million Chromebook laptops for schools in remote and underdeveloped regions between 2020 and 2022, a project the court said caused state losses.
His prison sentence was lighter than the 18 years prosecutors sought.


Nadiem was also ordered to pay a fine of 1 billion rupiah (US$55,870) and 809 billion rupiah in restitution, with failure to settle the latter resulting in an additional five years in prison. Prosecutors had demanded 5.6 trillion rupiah in total restitution.
In their ruling, the judges said Chromebook laptops were not the right devices for Indonesia at that time.
“Choosing a device that relies on an internet connection amid uneven infrastructure increasingly demonstrates a mismatch with needs, so the excuse of force majeure must be set aside,” member judge Sunoto said.
Nadiem’s decision to procure Chromebooks also benefited Google, which was an investor in Gojek’s then parent company Aplikasi Karya Anak Bangsa (AKAB), said Chief Judge Purwanto Abdullah.

“Based on the series of evidence revealed at the trial, the panel of judges was of the opinion that the party targeted for profitable purposes in this case was the Google corporation,” Purwanto said.
He also noted how Google invested US$786.9 million in AKAB between 2017 and 2021, with most of the investments taking place after Nadiem was appointed minister.
Google has denied any involvement in the case.
“We have not offered, promised, or provided benefits to education ministry officials in exchange for their decision to adopt Google products,” it said in a statement on January 9.
In a dissenting opinion, Judge Andi Saputra said there was “no evidence of malicious intent or malicious acts that would provide a causal connection or indication between the conflict of interest and corporate crime”.
He said Nadiem should be freed of all charges.
Dozens of Gojek drivers attended Tuesday’s hearing, wearing their iconic green vests and holding banners that read “today Nadiem will be free”, among other slogans.

Two of Nadiem’s former subordinates at the ministry, as well as a technology consultant, have been sentenced to up to 4½ years in prison in the same case.
Jurist Tan, Nadiem’s former special staffer, remains a fugitive after being named a suspect in August.
Nadiem’s team of lawyers called the decision “unfair”.
“Facts are read in reverse and influenced by assumptions, so it seems that all the truths that have been [revealed] are meaningless,” they said in a statement posted to Nadiem’s social media account.
Nadiem has pledged to appeal, saying he would “continue fighting for the truth, for the sake of young people, for the professionals out there, for all honest people who are discriminated against”.
Investor scrutiny
For Nadiem’s supporters and some industry observers, the case has become a warning about the risks facing entrepreneurs and professionals who move between Indonesia’s private sector and government, with potential consequences for both investor confidence and public-service recruitment.
“Nadiem is a portrait of a young man who successfully built a start-up into the massive company it is today,” Nicky Fahrizal, a political and social change researcher at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies Indonesia, told This Week in Asia.
Gojek was Indonesia’s first decacorn – a tech company valued at over US$10 billion.
“When someone who has truly succeeded in making breakthroughs, including at the Ministry of Education, is sentenced based on trial facts that the judge ignored, investors will reconsider investing in Indonesia because they could be prosecuted in the same way.”

Jon Russell, a start-up consultant and editor of the Asia Tech Review newsletter, agreed investor confidence in Indonesia’s tech sector could be affected.
“Indonesia’s government was once synonymous with domestic start-up success stories like Gojek and Tokopedia, but now authorities seem almost at war with the tech industry,” Russell said.
“Venture capital investment into Indonesia had already slumped, and it’s hard to see that changing any time soon with this spate of jail sentences for tech executives.”
Prominent businessmen including Richard Branson, the billionaire founder of Virgin Group, have backed Nadiem in recent weeks.
“Nadiem Makarim is one of Indonesia’s most successful entrepreneurs, who traded his business career for a post in government to become a champion of educational reform. He should be celebrated for what he achieved, not prosecuted on trumped-up charges that seem politically motivated,” Branson wrote on his LinkedIn account earlier this month.
Nadiem’s supporters voiced their disappointment online.
“Moral message to the younger generation: seek knowledge all the way to China and never come back,” influencer Jenny Jusuf said on Threads.
The case had already alarmed some Indonesians overseas, who saw Nadiem’s trial as a test of whether returning home for public service could expose private-sector professionals to legal risk.

Potential pardon?
Nicky likened Nadiem’s case to that of Tom Lembong, a former trade minister who in 2025 was sentenced to 4½ years in prison for improperly granting sugar import permits. President Prabowo Subianto eventually pardoned him.
Compared with Lembong, however, Nadiem’s “lower political capital” meant he was unlikely to be pardoned, Nicky added.
For Nailul Huda, director of digital economy at the think tank Centre of Economic and Law Studies, the case shows how policymakers could face legal accountability when procurement decisions are found to benefit certain parties, even if the officials themselves did not personally profit.
“Prosecutors and judges certainly have a basis for their decisions. If someone benefits from policies [deriving from] an act of corruption, then the policymakers must also be held accountable, even if they did not benefit [from the policy],” he said.
The Nadiem case could be “a turning point” in formulating standard policies regarding procurement and tender selection, which would provide “legal certainty” for government-related businesses, Nailul said.


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Nadiem Makarim, Indonesia’s former education minister and co-founder of ride-hailing firm Gojek,  at the Central Jakarta Court on Tuesday. Photo: Reuters

Nadiem Makarim, Indonesia’s ex-education minister and co-founder of ride-hailing firm Gojek, speaks to his lawyers after his verdict in a corruption case related to the procurement of Google Chromebook laptops, on Tuesday. Photo: Reuters

Gojek drivers react outside the courtroom during the sentencing hearing of Indonesia’s former education minister and co-founder of ride-hailing app Gojek, Nadiem Makarim, in Jakarta on Tuesday. Photo: EPA

Supporters of Nadiem Makarim, Indonesia’s former education minister and co-founder of ride-hailing app Gojek, attend his sentencing hearing at the Jakarta Corruption Court on Tuesday. Photo: EPA

Former education minister Nadiem Anwar Makarim is greeted by supporters before his sentencing hearing in a Google Chromebook laptop procurement corruption case, in Jakarta, Indonesia, on Tuesday. Photo: AP

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Ex-education minister Nadiem Makarim has been sentenced to 10 years’ jail for abusing his authority over the procurement of school laptops


Ex-education minister Nadiem Makarim has been sentenced to 10 years’ jail for abusing his authority over the procurement of school laptops.


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Does Gojek co-founder’s guilty verdict test Indonesia’s investor climate?

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Ex-education minister Nadiem Makarim has been sentenced to 10 years’ jail for abusing his authority over the procurement of school laptops

Ex-education minister Nadiem Makarim has been sentenced to 10 years’ jail for abusing his authority over the procurement of school laptops