Indonesia’s Attorney General’s Office has named Nadiem Makarim—former minister of education, culture, research and technology, and the co-founder of ride-hailing giant Gojek—as a suspect in an alleged corruption scandal dubbed ‘Chromebookgate’, linked to the procurement of student laptops between 2019 and 2023.
Makarim, who was minister between 2019 and 2024, was immediately detained at the Salemba detention facility of the South Jakarta District Prosecutor’s Office’s branch for 20 days, starting from today (Sept. 4).
According to local media reports, the arrest follows repeated questioning of Nadiem in the case. He was summoned twice—first on June 23 for roughly 12 hours, and again on July 15 for about nine hours. Since June 19, he has also been barred from leaving the country for six months.
In the third summons, he was questioned between 9 am and 3 pm Jakarta time on Thursday (Sept. 4).
Nadiem insisted he was not involved in corruption. “I did not do anything,” he said as he was taken by car to the Attorney General’s Office. He invoked the name of God, saying: “Allah will know the truth. For me, throughout my life, integrity is number one, honesty is number one,” Nadiem said.
He expressed confidence that the truth would protect him. “Allah will protect me, God willing,” he added.
“All my life, integrity has been number one, honesty has been number one. My condolences to Affan, the motorcycle taxi driver,” he added. Affan Kurniawan was a Gojek driver who died when a police vehicle ploughed into him as it chased protesters in Jakarta during the August 28-30 demonstrations. Kurniawan’s death inflamed more unrest across Indonesian cities.
The 9.98 trillion rupiah (around $606 million) Chromebook procurement programme was a flagship policy of President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo’s administration, aimed at digitalising Indonesian classrooms.
In June 2025, Nadiem said that during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, his ministry rolled out the ICT programme to prevent learning loss—distributing 1.1 million laptops, 3G modems, and projectors to more than 77,000 schools over four years. By 2023, he claimed, 97% of the laptops had been delivered to active, registered schools.
In May 2025, the Attorney General’s Office formally launched an investigation into why officials specifically chose Chromebooks when a 2019 pilot test had flagged the ineffectiveness of the Google device in areas with unreliable internet—a widespread issue in Indonesia.
Prosecutors estimate the financial damage to the state from the Chromebook procurement to be approximately 1.98 trillion rupiah ($120 million)—a figure still being audited by the Financial and Development Supervisory Board (BPKP).
BPKP’s audit of the Chromebook procurement flagged four main issues: overlapping aid to schools that had already received government funding; misallocation of 44.5 billion rupiah to nearly 500 schools that didn’t meet student requirements; and problems in targeting, timing, specifications, and quantity of the devices. Completed in February 2024, the audit has been handed to prosecutors as part of the ongoing corruption probe.
The Attorney General’s Office has charged Nadiem under Indonesia’s Anti-Corruption Law (Law No. 31/1999 as amended by Law No. 20/2001) in conjunction with Article 55 of the Criminal Code.
The authority highlighted Nadiem’s alleged role in pressing for the inclusion of Google Chromebooks in the education procurement programme. In early 2020, as minister, he reportedly responded to a letter from Google promoting Chromebooks.
Nadiem is the fifth person officially charged in the broader probe into procurement irregularities from 2019 to 2022.
Earlier suspects include: Sri Wahyuningsih, former Directorate General Education official (PAUD to secondary level); Mulyatsyah, former junior high school director at the Ministry; Jurist Tan, former special staff to Minister Nadiem; and Ibrahim Arief, technology infrastructure consultant at the Ministry.
Nadiem Makarim stepped down from his role as Gojek’s CEO on Oct. 21, 2019 to join Jokowi’s cabinet—a post he held till the end of Jokowi’s tenure in 2024.
Gojek merged with e-commerce startup Tokopedia in 2021 to form PT GoTo Gojek Tokopedia (GoTo). In July, the attorney general’s office raided the office of GoTo to search for evidence related to the case but did not provide further details.
