Set up RCI to review Zakat system

Set up RCI to review Zakat system

RM1m tithe contribution to UMS (DE 24 Feb 2019 page 4). Lets see what this zakat (tithe) is really is when tithe (one tenth) is loosely associated to Islamic zakat.

What is said in the Bible – a holy book for all – about tithe is not the same as spelt out in the Koran.  Tithe is one tenth of income given back to society. But in the news item the said zakat would be distributed to four  categories, namely hardcore poor, asnaf, poor, mullaf (convert to Islam) and students.

So what is zakat really and hopefully this letter can help many who may be confused with the reality of that.

According to Wikipedia ---Zakat literally means "that which purifies".^[1] Zakat is considered a way to purify one's income and wealth from sometimes worldly, impure ways of acquisition.   According to Sachiko Murata and William Chittick, "Just as ablutions purify the body and salat purifies the soul (in Islam), so zakat purifies possessions and makes them pleasing to God."

Islamic scholars have traditionally interpreted this verse as identifying the following eight categories of Muslim causes to be the proper recipients of zakat.

1.     Those living without means of livelihood (Al-Fuqarā'), the poor

2.     Those who cannot meet their basic needs (Al-Masākīn), the needy

3.     To zakat collectors (Al-Āmilīyn 'Alihā)

4.     To persuade those sympathetic to or expected to convert to Islam (Al-Mu'allafatu Qulūbuhum), recent converts to Islam, and potential allies in the cause of Islam

5.     To free from slavery or servitude (Fir-Riqāb), slaves of Muslims who have or intend to free from their master by means of a kitabah contract

6.     Those who have incurred overwhelming debts while attempting to satisfy their basic needs (Al-Ghārimīn), debtors who in pursuit of a worthy goal incurred a debt^.

7.     Those fighting for a religious cause or a cause of God (Fī Sabīlillāh), or for Jihad in the way of Allah by means of pen, word, or sword, or for Islamic warriors who fight against the unbelievers but are not salaried soldiers.

8.     Wayfarers, stranded travellers (Ibnu Al-Sabīl), travellers who are traveling with a worthy goal but cannot reach their destination without financial assistance.

Zakat should not be given to one's own parents, grandparents, children, grandchildren, spouses or the descendants of the Prophet Muhammad.

In Malaysia like many other countries, Zakat is not really a tenth but of lesser amount for individual as varied annually.  It is mandatory for Muslms in Malaysia.

It may sound very good for the generosity of many people but is it a departure when such payments go through the income tax system ? If such payments go through the income tax system, isn’t it that it is converted to a public obligation?

So when zakat contributions are diverted to various public institutions like UMS and other similar recipients for administrating distribution as an off budget item, we need proper control over that.  Such annual amounts are substantial.

Zakat has been disclosed as follows: RM320,348,661.01 (2001) RM373,924,167 (2002) RM408,430,403.56 (2003)  RM473,269 ,093 (2004) RM 573,088,305 .74 (2005)  RM671,095,888.89 (2006) (Source : PPZ-MAIWP Annual Report 2006).  Zakat was established since 1991 and RM2.2 b was collected in 2013.  So how much is it in 2014 -2017?  Many companies not individuals also claim substantial zakat in their tax returns. 

UMS and other similar institutions also receive substantial amounts from many companies.

So would there be any good governance over the distribution of an off budget annual expenditure of such substantial sums of sort of public fund after gone through the income tax system likely deemed to be tax leakages without proper public accountability.  It is a general perception that students would be financial capable to sustain their tenure of study and where would hard core poor people or students arise to be eligible for receiving such funds annually?  So I hope it is not an excuse and an abuse to “reward” new Muslims amongst the students. Would such institutions now prepare annual reports for the distribution of zakat for good governance? 

Given the present financial scenario of national debts of over RM1 trillions and still counting, isn’t it more pressing that this item be reduced by whatever sources available rather than leave it to the next generation as a burden too much to bear.  Failing to resolve the exceeding high debts quickly can cause serious consequences and a calamity can befall on the nation.  We have no choice but focus on debts reduction to a fair level.

There are also reports that zakat system has been abused especially in the proper distribution of its purposes of a public fund.  What is the purpose of public fund when only a certain community becomes the beneficiaries? 

Maybe it is also timely in new Malaysia that a Royal Commission of Inquiry be established over the zakat system when there is a review board over income tax in Malaysia.

Joshua Y C Kong  26/2/2019

Who say cannot stop PPBM to come to Sabah ?

Who say cannot stop PPBM to come to Sabah ?

If Sabah and Sarawak CMs could ban political and NGO leaders from Peninsula Malaysia to enter the states and so the State Government can ban undesirable parties from Malaya who champion race and religion to enter the States as the disunity motive is so much undesirable in the context of Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63) with terms meant for a united Malaysia.

MA63 does include race and religion and that do affect good and harmonious relationship in Sabah and Sarawak with a demographic variance in Borneo states.  Sabah did not have an official religion until Tun M changes it in 1973 when it was the dark age.  Even the original Oath Stone in Keningau guaranteeing no official religion was somehow removed and only replaced accordingly in 2018.  What does UMNO really champion? UMNO champions race and religion when and where Malay= Muslim=Malay according to Mahathir. UMNO always screaming Malay & Islam...and so when UMNO came to Sabah, that voice was so loud and also insulting to others especially in Sabah.  Also UMNO sent all the vehicles on race and religion since 1963 without respect to MA63. All those vehicles on race and religion incur a lot of tax payer money with or without UMNO presence in Sabah.   All those violations to make Malaysia and Sabah islamic are illegal hence UMNO was illegal in the national context. Now PPBM or Bersatu also in the same vein of UMNO as Mahathir always say so... and so steer clear of Sabah in honour of MA63.

Another heinous crime committed by UMNO under the leadership of Mahathir was the denied Project IC in Sabah since 1980s and then accelerated in 1990s so much so there were 1 million and more project IC holders of illegal people in Sabah then. Now it is very likely to be 2 millions of such project IC holders in Sabah as a majority displacing local people and that can be termed “GENOCIDE” with  the criminal ingredients of ethnic cleansing and apartheid which have  been the scorn of the world.

In the news article “Previous govt stole rights of sabah” (DE Feb 15, 2019), Senator Datuk Douglas Lind has expressed support for Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad’s suggestion to clean up the electoral rolls to improve Malaysia’s system.  Senator Datuk Douglas Lind went on to say something “dreadful” about the thorn in the flesh about matters stated in the Royal Commission of Inquiry on Illegal Immigrants Sabah (RCI IIS).   Unfortunately, Douglas did not mention MA63 which was not implemented for rights of Sabah.

This project IC earlier started by USNO times had been expanded by UMNO in 1990s so much so that the socalled “Race and Religion” in the demographic percentage had surged from an original low figure to nearly 70% in 2000 State Census  so much so that the Government of the day considered Sabah as an “Islamic” state resulting in oppressive measures against others.

It was indeed sad and regretable that no consideration was made to prohibit UMNO to enter Sabah in 1990 under MA63 as the leaders both Federal and State leaders had never considered MA63 in the building of a harmonious society devoid of the race and religion as far as it concerns Sabah in Malaysia.

So against a background of MA63 with so many violations –financial, economic, basic human rights, religious rights, racial rights, education, languages, universal rights, PPBM should rectify all these shortcomings before it can even consider coming to Sabah and Sarawak. PPBM and UMNO are both championing similar narrow bias attitudes/sentiment/intention and continue to do harmful ways for Malaysia.

It was indeed a very grave mistake to have allowed UMNO into Sabah in 1990s and now the same grievous mistake cannot be repeated for PPBM to enter Sabah and Sarawak in the belated context of MA63 in both spirit and letter thereof.  Keep the “poison” of race and religion in Peninsular Malaysia in the personal agenda of the leaders. When that “poison” comes here, it can cause disarray in the nation.

Joshua Y C Kong 20/2/2019

Wildlife supports our existence on earth

Wildlife supports our existence on earth

That is damn serious and no longer any more an imagination.

Journal Science on half the planet should be set aside for wildlife – to save ourselves as published on 13 September 2018.

 So say leading biologists in an editorial in the journal Science  as “ If we want to avoid mass extinctions and preserve the ecosystems all plants and animals depend on, governments should protect a third of the oceans and land by 2030 and half by 2050, with a focus on areas of high biodiversity.”    It’s not just about saving wildlife, says Jonathan Baillie of the National Geographic Society, one of the authors. It’s also about saving ourselves.

So I would like to add my own observations as a caretaker of friendly and homely dogs a long time ago especially since 1990 in Kota Kinabalu. I am not the owner of dogs but God is the owner of all animals especially in personal context the sort of “best” friend dogs.  I feel that it is not right to connect dogs as best friends rather it is Jesus Christ as our best friends forever.

I can fondly recall all the time that in 1966 on my return to Labuan for the first ever after first year’s study in Sabah College, a furry dog came to greet me even before I could leave my car when my father fetch me home from the airport. Then that dog just disappeared soon after as I did not see it again. That very impressive image still stay with me now.

Since that memorable day of encounter I had not done much for dogs until in 1990 when my landlady brought me a local mixed breed German shepherd puppy and since then it has been “dogging” for me as a hobby like some people do golfing etc.

In my dogging experience, I have gained much insight into the life of dogs in the homely habitat and not in dogs shelters which are for strayed or problematic dogs.  I strongly recommend that all kids should grow up with some puppies. For enhancing dogging experience, I would say it is not enough just to have a few dogs but a family of dogs from puppies to adult ones to gain valuable experience and enjoyment money cannot buy. .

There are so much to gain for our enhancement of daily living.  It may put us to shame that there are people out there that claim that we cannot physically communicate with God.  It is really our human problem that we not in sync with God our Creator. God is always speaking unceasingly and it is us as frail human beings with great pride of self-righteousness not hearing them.  God would hear us and do according to His Will as we claim to pray to God. He may and may not choose to return our prayers in physical voice of God.  God may just do it even without our knowing it.

In a particular case for me over a sick dog and I asked God if I should treat it by calling the veterinary doctor to incur some costs. Almost instantly, the small stern and strong voice told me “the money you have is also for the dogs.” With that I called up the veterinary doctor and that dog was treated and healed.  I have also prayed over dogs with high temperature and the temperature just went back to normal instantly.

With such ’unexplained’ experiences, it would impress on me that God would care for His creations and creatures and possibly care more for unexplained scenarios that He cares more for His animals especially dogs than human beings.  Animals can be sinless while human beings choose to be sinful at times.

So the key word as started in this letter is “extinction” for animals and human beings too.  We are so often told of the extinction of wild life (flora and fauna) and yet we are too helpless to stop that with acute deforestation the world over.

Now in Malaysia and especially Sabah with the dog’s head in its land outline, dogs are heading to extinction especially in our own home environment.  It is a sadly an episode with the largely disappearance of once pristine forests in Sabah and replaced with mono crop of alien oil palm and in the back ground of worsening climatic temperature, it is a domino phenomenon that the flora and fauna would soon be depleted as exacerbated by human greed. With the accelerated depletion of flora and fauna, what chance have human beings to continue to exist?  With rising temperature uncontrollable, would the “rapture” so often being mentioned in the Bible be a thing to come?

Really not many people are concerned to mitigate the climate change and rather our activities unimpeded are sure to engulf us in total destruction like it or not. Very few people are interested in my proposed program #EcoGeneration to save the degraded earth to save ourselves.

I hope that this letter can reverse the still on the way to extinction of companion dogs as “engineered” by ourselves with whatever regulations of the relevant authorities failing to see the real picture over the recent decades.  What separate city and kampong/village living is the gap in flora and fauna.  Isn’t it a great blessing in natural terms that we wake up with the crows or calls of the cocks in the morning?  So similarly it is great blessing in the still or dead of night to hear some barkings or sounds from dogs for all the purposes thereof.  All these divine sounds should be music for our souls on earth. Like it or not, these have been calls from the wilderness of sort and soon maybe no wilderness calls for ourselves.

It is just unimaginable, that there is such “hatred” for dogs and when dogs are created by God, and so those dogs haters are anti God.

I think there are plenty cases of cruelty against the dogs and such serious issues are not properly addressed by the Animal Welfare Act 2015 where penalties of fines and jail sentences are stipulated.  The most recent one was a heinous one against a dog in a steel factory committed by a worker and the company concerned had promptly apologised for the crime and nothing proceed to the trial under Animal Welfare Act 2015.  Why such a disappointing precedent?

With the passing of the much “hated” in the Chinese calendar now come possibly another “hated” animal the pig.  However both these animals have largely brought a lot of benefits to the society at large, with the dogs we know it is an utility animal to solve emergency and also crimes; with the pig apart for energised food and in the medical field it is known as guinea pig.

So God in His creation of the earth, animals came first and human kind is ordered by God to take care of the animals.  So if we hate dogs and pigs, we are anti God.

If dogs and many animals go extinct, we would miss their specific sounds sort of from the wilderness.  If there are no dogs, you would not hear them howling at demonic intrusion.  My dogs do daily howling day and night and to me that is “music” to my soul.  It is written in an ancient book that dolls of dogs are buried in the ground of front door to ward off evil.

Be reminded that in the Noah time, animals were so important that they were kept alive in the great flood.  Today, we are sort of reduced to less than animals when we fail to do a duty to God.  Dogs in the housing areas have dwindled so much that extinction is a reality.

Joshua Y C Kong 15/2/2019

Hope NACP is as good in action and not on paper only

Hope NACP is as good in action and not on paper only

The newly-launched National Anti-Corruption Plan (NACP) 2019-2023 on 29 January,2019 serves as a warning to all – including the prime minister and Cabinet ministers – to steer clear of graft.

The NACP also reveals that RM1.8 trillion was lost by the government through illicit financial flows between 2005 and 2014.

The prime minister said that the execution of the 115 initiatives in the NACP, which aim to rid Malaysia of corruption, will need the involvement of all – from himself to kindergarten teachers.

“(You) cannot expect me alone to do it, or only the National Governance, Integrity and Anti-Corruption Centre (GIACC).

“And, it is also not the responsibility of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) or certain agencies, to shoulder the responsibility of (ensuring corruption-free) governance and integrity.

“It is the responsibility of all quarters… to inculcate good values and to (instil) hatred towards corruption among our children.

The Federal Court on 30^th January, 2019 cautioned that those who disclose their police reports to the public may face the risk of civil action against them in court.

Justice Azahar Mohamed, who read the judgment in a case involving defamation, said people who disclosed the contents of their police reports to the public did not enjoy the right of absolute privilege.

Absolute privilege is an immunity for individuals, especially elected representatives, who make statements within the legislature regardless of whether their statements are malicious or not.

Azahar said the legal position in Malaysia was that a person making a police report was immune from legal action against him or her.

“However, we do not see a reason, on grounds of public policy, that the complainant should be free from accountability by way of defamation when publishing their statement to the public.

“There is no sufficient basis or necessity to expand the ambit of absolute privilege to cover the subsequent publication of the report at large,” the judge said in delivering judgment in the defamation case against local actress Zahida Rafik.

With this latest ruling from the Federal Court unless clarified by the Government of the day that we cannot be whistle blowers unless we are protected in the fight against corruption.

The Whistleblower Protection Act 2010 passed by Parliament in June 2010 provides protection to whistleblowers who voluntarily come forward to report or reveal information on corruption activities. This Act also encourages the public from all sectors to disclose corruption related activities. The identity of the whistleblower and the information provided are kept confidential from any party. Whistleblowers are also given immunity from any civil, criminal or disciplinary action due to the revealing of the act of corruption.

The Whistleblower Protection Act 2010 is a law of Malaysia to combat corruption and other wrong doings by encouraging and facilitating disclosures of improper conduct in the public and private sector, to protect persons making those disclosures from detrimental action, to provide for the matter disclosed to be investigated and dealt with and to provide for the remedies connected therewith.

Whistleblower Andre Xavier Justo on 1^st February, 2019, who is credited with breaking the infamous 1MDB scandal in Malaysia, has been gifted US$2 million (RM8.2 million) by The Edge Media Group chairman for exposing the scam

Group chairman Tong Kooi Ong presented the gift to Justo when he, his wife Laura and four-year-old son Zander visited the business weekly’s office today. They met Tong and the group’s CEO, Ho Kay Tat, The Edge Markets reported.

“The gift to Justo is in appreciation of his contribution to Malaysia in helping to expose the kleptocracy of the past government,” Tong was quoted as saying in the report.

“Without him, the wrongdoings involving 1MDB, as exposed by The Edge, would not have come to light.”

Justo was arrested in 2015 for leaking documents from oil and gas company PetroSaudi International relating to its joint venture with 1MDB, which formed the basis of a money laundering investigation.

This landed him in a Thai jail for 18 months for allegedly demanding payment in exchange for not disclosing confidential information.

“His family was harassed and intimidated while he was languishing in jail. No one should have to go through what he had to endure for helping to reveal the truth,” Tong said.

So we can see that it is not that easy for any whistleblower without pain and no gain. So Justo at least can see the day of his struggle against the Kleptocratic government under Najib.

So what the Federal Court decision on 30^th January, 2019 can present a harder fight against corruption especially against a kleptocratic government even with today’s new Government should NACP would likely fail too. 

The role of newspapers in the fight against corruption could also be facing tougher challenge as corrupted deals could simply be swept under the carpets as with my experience of exposing the corruption in the Government sector since 2004 in more than 30 Police Reports worth more than RM30 trillions –past present and future losses arising from corruption.

Newspapers would welcome Police Reports for publication to stir public concern.

When the Police fails to act on any corruption matters, the Police would recommend the lodgers of Police Reports to go to MACC for further action. But when MACC also fail to act where would the lodgers go?  Go to Public Complaint Bureau and then to Malaysia Human Right Commission or Suhakam.  When all things fail to see any correction action, it is naturally that such Police Reports are published in online websites and or blogs just to draw more attention without fear and favour.

Now with the “new Malaysia” government, are the aggrieved public got any way better to deal with corruption of a “kleptocratic” government or certain politicians and civil servants now they are sort of  protected with the latest ruling from the Federal Court despite NACP and the Whistleblowers Act 2010?

Now this letter is to the Court of the People in the fight of kleptocracy.  Imagine RM1.8 trillions was lost for the period 2005 to 2014 (only tip of iceberg).  You are sure ill practice would not be repeated when politicians often claim that they spent a lot on money to bribe the voters?

For NACP to succeed, it is obvious the public contribution is pertinent and the Federal Court or the legal fraternity assure the public that Whistleblowers Act 2010 is still relevant.

To have an added punch in fight against kleptocracy, the whistle blowers should be rewarded after a long battle like what Justo has just being rewarded to go on living.

For myself not to be disappointed forever in my effort of more than 30 Police Reports mostly published in blogspot, should not I be similarly rewarded like Justo to bring greater justice in society?

In passing, I am just wondering if there is really any justice from the Courts of Malaysia when we have the expensive and beautiful domes on top of major court buildings or complexes and symbolic of what, may I ask?

There is another Act on cruelty against animals especially dogs, and yet no official punitive action initiated against the often crimes against dogs as recently witnessed a horrendous slaughter of a dog by an employee in a steel factory and apologised by the company concerned.  Why such exposure escapes the attention and action of the relevant authorities?

Also is it not an abuse of court to be punished accordingly for withdrawing a very high profile court case in London by a top opposition leader for a massive claim in great disgrace when he could not recite what he had said in Malaysia in the London court that “It is not a sin of corruption in Islam” as per Rewcastle-Brown.  Why should not Malaysia deliver such natural justice when there appears to be dual systems of conflict but it is done elsewhere?

I must thank God if this letter in full would be published by Daily Express as real justice would prevail in exposing all ills and corruption especially kleptocracy.

Joshua Y C Kong, 7/2/2019