Minister of Social Affairs, where’s the zakat money?

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ONE of the most frequently asked questions in Kuwait is — Where do the zakat funds go?

This question is also usually asked when corruption involving the fund is discovered. In recent years, newspapers have been publishing about the corruption in the donation of these funds. No reliable investigation has been conducted in this regard, and the matter is under a microscope.

It is also known legally that zakat must first be given to the needy people of the country to which donors belong, and whatever remains is sent abroad. However, to allocate all of it abroad and deprive citizens who are in need is in violation of the legitimate and legal principle of the concept of zakat. Almost every day, we come across reports about sending the zakat funds abroad, and that the zakat funds are being used to establish projects in Asia and Africa.

In fact, some of those countries are richer than Kuwait, but no one is held accountable for this major defect.

In recent years, international reports have indicated that some of these donations go to terrorist groups abroad. This undoubtedly means that corruption is rampant in these funds and associations, and this in turn harms Kuwait’s global reputation.

This is why we call for limiting donations to those in need in Kuwait such as those in debt, and specifically those imprisoned for issuing dud cheques to usurers and loan sharks.

Our objective here is to relieve people of the dilemma imposed on them. Therefore, it is necessary to have transparency when spending these zakat funds in a way that pleases Almighty Allah, and inspire reassurance into the donors, instead of those with pot-bellies who swindle people by spending on projects that no one knows about.

Given that, remembrance is good for those who believe, we are reminded of the biography of the eighth Caliph of the Umayyad Dynasty Omar bin Abdulaziz. It is said that when zakat money was brought to him, he ordered it to be spent on the poor. After finding no poor person under his rule to spend on, he ordered the surplus to be spent on equipping his army. After that, he ordered young men to be married with the surplus of the zakat. He then ordered to settle the debts of those in debt, and the remaining surplus, he ordered that it be used to buy wheat and scatter it on the tops of the mountains so that no one will say that a bird went hungry under his rule.

We do not say you must scatter wheat in the desert, but when we talk about debtors, especially those who issue dud cheques, we are not talking about large sums. We are also not talking about commercial debts.

The debt we are talking about involves an insolvent person who was unable to pay KD 5,000 or KD 6,000, and got imprisoned for that. We are talking about the debts of women who were duped by their husbands and forced to take loans and sign dud cheques, for which they were issued heavy sentences reaching five to ten years.

As for the one who forced her to do this, he took the money and divorced her, and then married another woman. Others got travel bans imposed on them, and all their transactions with the state got suspended. His case is almost, if not worse, similar to a criminal.

All of these problems can be solved quickly if there is an intention to close this annoying file.

We also reiterate that the relevant committees can negotiate with the creditor to reduce the amount so that the donors’ money is distributed to the largest number of people.

Those who gave zakat to these organizations and funds were aiming for it to go to the needy, instead of it being used to build palaces for those in charge of it or for spending it on terrorist groups, or for entertaining corrupt people who do not fear Allah with the money entrusted to them.

By Ahmed Al-Jarallah

Editor-in-Chief, the Arab Times

This news has been read 1767 times!