Indonesia’s government agencies are rushing to cut costs — from scrapping infrastructure projects to even reducing office supplies and air conditioner use — following President Prabowo Subianto’s call to free up funds for his signature policies.

Prabowo’s belt-tightening directive is aimed at finding $18.8bn from this year’s budget to fund big-ticket initiatives, chiefly his free lunch programme, which is set to cover more than 82mn schoolchildren and pregnant mothers nationwide and cost $28bn annually.

While Indonesia’s vast bureaucracy has long been criticised as inefficient, Prabowo’s austerity order goes far beyond eliminating extravagances and leakage. The scale of the cuts, which come three months into his presidency, underscores the severe fiscal constraints faced by the former military general as he seeks to deliver on his top campaign promises.