Experts yesterday stressed the need for spending zakat money collectively on education, healthcare and income generating activities for marginalised people for a good impact.
The third of Islam's five pillars, zakat is the compulsory and systematic giving of 2.5 percent of one's wealth each year to benefit the poor. It is regarded as a type of worship and of selfpurification.
An estimated Tk 30,000 crore can be collected as zakat in Bangladesh every year, according to a keynote paper presented at a seminar titled "Role of Zakat and Tax in Reducing Economic Inequalities".
"Rich Muslims can pay their zakat collectively instead of individually to get a much greater impact," Planning Minister MA Mannan told the event organised by the Center for Zakat Management (CZM) at Krishibid Institution Bangladesh alongside a daylong fair focusing on the practice.
Zakat can play a vital role in alleviating poverty, he said, adding that poverty alleviation activities in Bangladesh have been accelerated through job creation and social safety net programmes.
ABM Azizul Islam, a former caretaker government finance adviser, said if zakat money could be utilised in an institutionalised way, the country could have got the maximum benefit from it.
He recommended using the money in income generating activities so that no family fell into poverty once getting zakat.
Zakat should not be distributed in the form of small cash or clothes to provide temporary relief to the poor, rather should be for small business purposes, said Muhammad Abdul Mazid, former chairman of the National Board of Revenue.
Some good ways to utilise the fund could be starting specific programmes on education and skills development, keeping provision of physical capital and making available financial capital for the start of businesses so that the
poor can be productively employed, he added.
However, the institutions focusing on zakat are yet to underpin it as a national strategy for eliminating economic inequality, he pointed out.
In a comparative analysis of zakat and tax, former secretary AMM Nasir Uddin said taxes were collected from both the rich and the poor and its advantages did not have a huge impact on the poor.
On the other hand, zakat is collected from the rich only and its advantages go to the poor only, he said. So zakat is a much more effective way of eradicating poverty but it has to be utilised in an institutionalised way, he added.
Niaz Rahim, chairman of the CZM, said they have been helping livelihoods of over 4 lakh people from impoverished families to prosper.
The activities include income
generating programmes and ensuring medical assistance along with safe drinking water, sanitation and nutrition support for children, the physically challenged, widows and orphans.
“We want to create awareness on the socio-economic impact of institutional utilisation of Zakat funds,” he said and added that people could channel their zakat to the CZM to ensure that it has a good impact on poverty alleviation.
The CZM website says it was officially launched on September 14, 2008 to ensure proper utilisation of zakat funds for the wellbeing of the poor as per the tenets of Islam.
Justice Mohammad Abdur Rouf, former chief election commissioner; AKM Nurul Fazal Bulbul, secretary general of EXIM Bank Foundation, and Abdul Haque, managing director of Haq's Bay Automobiles, also spoke.