President Prabowo Subianto appointed two new deputy ministers and a number of other government officials in a cabinet reshuffle on Wednesday (8/10/2025).

This is the fourth reshuffle of Vice Ministers and officials in recent months, or less than a year into his presidency.

The two officials include Akhmad Wiyagus as Deputy Minister of Home Affairs (Wamendagri), while Benyamin Paulus Octavianus is Deputy Minister of Health (Wamenkes).

In addition, Prabowo also inaugurated a number of officials and heads of agencies and institutions as well as the Governor and Deputy Governor of Papua and 10 Ambassadors Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary (LBBP) to several friendly countries.

Some of them are Head of SOE Regulatory Agency Dony Oskaria, Deputy Head of SOE Regulatory Agency Aminudin Maruf, Deputy Head of SOE Regulatory Agency Tedi Bharata, Governor of Papua Matius Fakhiri, Deputy Governor of Papua Aryoko Alberto Ferdinand Rumaropen.

Dony previously served as Deputy Minister of SOEs and Chief Operation Officer of the Danantara Investment Management Agency. He was appointed last September as Acting Minister of SOEs after Erick Tohir shifted to become Minister of Youth and Sports.

The change led to the issue of merging the Ministry of SOEs with Danantara because the President only appointed Doni as Minister of SOEs ad interim. However, the merger is still under review, according to Minister of State Secretary Prasetyo Hadi some time ago.

Just like before, this reshuffle seemed sudden. Dony admitted that he received a call from Cabinet Secretary Teddy Indra Wijaya to attend the Palace an hour before.   

Meanwhile, Anggito Abimanyu was elected as Chairman of the Board of Commissioners of the Deposit Insurance Corporation (LPS), and Doddy Zulverdi, Suminto, Ferdinan Dwikaroja Purba were also inaugurated.

The Governor of Papua, Matius Fakhiri, emphasized that the main priority of his administration is the development of Papuan human resources, especially through the education and health sectors which are considered the main foundation of regional progress.

"We will coordinate with ministries and agencies, as well as the Committee formed by the President, to accelerate development measures," he added.

The Red and White cabinet of more than one hundred people is considered to be a burden on state finances in the five years of its administration, according to experts.

The Prabowo administration also broke up the previous administration's nine new ministries into 21 new ministries, with seven coordinating ministries.

Still wait and see

Economist from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Deni Friawan believes that this change is a natural thing in every government because the reshuffle is the President's prerogative.

"He will be good, if indeed the reason for the change is to improve the running of the government so that it can accelerate or improve the implementation of government programs and have a good impact on society," he said.

Conversely, this will have a bad impact, if the reason is not that, for example, political reasons and just for sharing positions. "If it is too frequent and doesn't even have a real impact, because apart from adding to the "fat" cabinet and budget, it can mean that the president is not capable of choosing his assistants," he said.

He said that so far, investors are still hesitant and tend to 'wait and see' on the policies taken by the Prabowo administration.

"They certainly see not only who the replacement is but also how the realization of the policies taken by the minister or deputy minister."

"Investors will essentially weigh the risk and reward return of their investment. If the reward return is high compared to the risk, they will invest in Indo. If not, they will wait or hesitate," he added.

Bright Institute Research Director Muhammad Andri Perdana said the reshuffle is actually not a bad thing, as long as it is done to improve the performance of ministers who are considered not optimal. "Investors will see that the government is serious about improving management," he said.

So far, he assessed that the swelling of the number of cabinet members is not automatically directly proportional to the improvement of economic performance. He pointed out that since the limit on the number of ministers was removed, government performance has not shown a positive correlation with economic indicators, ranging from tax revenue to people's purchasing power.

The more cabinet members there are, he said, the more inefficient the results of these budgets are in terms of their impact on the people's economy. 

"Because indeed, when viewed from the economic impact, it is the opposite. The more cabinet members do not improve government performance, that's the point," he said.

Secretary General of the Indonesian Forum for Budget Transparency (Fitra) Misbah Hasan said that the addition of two Deputy Ministers in the red and white cabinet made the cabinet fatter.

The fatness of the Prabowo administration's cabinet could also have an impact on the swelling of the operational budget, especially the central government's personnel expenditure. 

Misbah estimates an increase in employee spending of 20 percent to 30 percent." This will swell employee spending and spending on goods / services, including employee benefits, official travel spending, meals and drinks, and so on, "he told SUAR in Jakarta (8/10).

Gema Dzikri Harisma and Ridho Sukra contributed to this article.