ISLAMABAD – Corruption, mismanagement and unauthorised practices turn out to be the prime features of the whole mechanism for the assessment, collection and disbursement of central zakat fund to the poor and needy of the country.
According to a report available with Pakistan Today, the lack of internal control is leading to the leakage of funds and improper utilisation of Zakat money. The report said the Central Zakat Administration (CZA) is not carrying out reconciliation of zakat collecting agencies and transfer thereof into the central zakat fund.
Besides, the CZA did not reconcile their funds transferred to various provinces on regular basis. The report has pointed out variation in departmental and bank figures viz-a-viz collection and disbursement of funds to the poor. In the absence of regular reconciliation, the risk of leakage of funds cannot be ruled out.
Under the accounting procedure for the central zakat fund, at the close of each month, the entries recorded in the registers maintained by the central zakat administration are to be compared with the figures reported by the State Bank. In case of discrepancy, the details supplied by the SBP are to be checked and reconciled with those given in the return on the form CZ-08 sent directly by the Zakat deduction controlling agencies and those available in the record of the CZA.
The administration, instead of following the procedure for recording the collection figures on forms, recorded the figures provided by SBP without any reconciliation, thus making it impossible for the audit to verify the actual amount collected as Zakat and credited to CZF. Same kind of embezzlement had figured out in the fee collected for new arms licences.
Non-release of Zakat funds to the Punjab is due to non-constitution of local zakat committees (LZCs). The report says that CZA did not release the regular budget for the year 2008-09 to any district in the province of the Punjab due to non-constitution of the LZCs by the provincial zakat administration.
Hence the mustehqeen were deprived of Zakat assistance. The report says that no Ushr has been collected by the quarters concerned since 1990, which caused a great loss to the Zakat exchequer. The provincial revenue departments were responsible to assess and collect Ushr from every land owner but since 1990 no Ushr has been collected.
The report also points out serious irregularities on the part of the Zakat deducting agencies (banks) in the process of the collection of Zakat, including irregular exemption from Zakat and its non-deduction from account holders to the tune of over Rs 98 million and without specifying any reason. Some of the banks even failed to produce the record of the account holders who were exempted from deduction of Zakat.
The banks also continued to accept affidavit in the shape of declaration from account holders claiming exemption from the deduction of Zakat to the tune of Rs 243,282 on a plain paper instead of a stamp paper.
In a large number of cases, health welfare committees disbursed Zakat fund to the suppliers of medicines in cash or through open cheques instead of crossed cheques. The payment through crossed cheque is a secure mode to ascertain that the actual payee has received the payment.
