October 22, 2025 | 10:00 am
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Benjamin Paulus received a phone call from Cabinet Secretary Lieutenant Colonel Teddy Indra Wijaya in early October 2025. The caller had a message from President Prabowo Subianto asking Benjamin to become the Deputy Minister of Health.
According to Benjamin, the President wanted him to help lead the national tuberculosis eradication program. Indonesia ranks second in the world after India in the number of TB cases—around 1 million in 2024. Prabowo had pledged during his 2024 presidential campaign to halve that figure.
“I’m a pulmonary specialist, and the President asked me to help the country,” Benjamin said at the Ministry of Health in Jakarta on Friday, October 17, 2025. He was sworn in as deputy minister at the State Palace, sharing duties with Dante Saksono Harbuwono, who had held the position since Prabowo’s administration began.
Benjamin is no stranger to Prabowo or the Djojohadikusumo family. The two first met 17 years ago, when Prabowo was founding the Gerindra Party. One of Gerindra’s founders recalled that Benjamin was initially close to Prabowo’s younger brother, businessman Hashim Djojohadikusumo. Since 2022, Benjamin has served as General Chair of the Grand Indonesia Health Agency, a Gerindra Party affiliate organization.
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