Indonesia jails Nadiem Makarim, a former education minister and co-founder of Gojek, for Ten Years Because Chromebooks Got Wrong
Nadiem Makarim, who used to be the education minister of Indonesia, was given 10 years in jail for a Chromebook procurement scandal that cost a lot of money.
As a former Indonesian education minister and co-founder of the ride-hailing and payments giant Gojek, Nadiem Makarim was found guilty of corruption in the purchase of Google Chromebooks for schools as part of the country’s education digitalization program. He was given a 10-year prison sentence.
Makarim was also fined 1 billion rupiah, which is about $55,870, and told to pay 809.6 billion rupiah in compensation by an Indonesian court for corruption on Tuesday. He would get another five years in jail if he didn’t pay back the money, the court said.
It was because Makarim bought Google Chromebooks through Indonesia’s education digitalization program, which ran from 2019 to 2022, and he was education minister from 2019 to 2024. This led to his guilt.
To get a much harsher sentencing, the prosecutors asked the court to put Makarim in jail for 18 years, fine him 1 billion rupiah, and make him pay back 5.6 trillion rupiah.
In September 2025, Indonesia’s Attorney General named Makarim as a person of interest in corruption. He said that Makarim and other officials hacked the procurement process by pushing technical specifications for Google goods.
Prosecutors say Makarim met with Google Indonesia employees in February 2020 to talk about Google’s products, such as Chromebooks that the education ministry could give to kids to use.
Prosecutors told the court about the deal that was supposedly made during the meetings: “After several meetings, it was finally agreed that Google’s products, specifically ChromeOS and Chrome Devices Management (CDM), would be used as a procurement project for ICT equipment.”
Prosecutors said the decision didn’t take into account the results of a 2019 study ordered by Makarim’s boss, which found that Chromebooks couldn’t be used effectively in many parts of Indonesia, especially in remote areas with few facilities.
They also said that Makarim later sent out technical procurement directions that only matched the specifications of the ChromeOS operating system. This made it clear that Chromebooks would be able to pass the procurement process.
Prosecutors also said in separate court documents that Chromebooks with fewer features were bought for about 6 million rupiah each, even though they should have cost about 3 million rupiah each.
People think this is one of the most well-known corruption cases in Indonesia featuring a former cabinet minister.
