The state Islamic affairs councils (referred to as MAINs by their Malay initials) were taken to task as being the cause of the dwindling amount of wakaf land, and it was suggested that donors of such land be allowed to maintain them.

However, a lawyer said the problem did not lie with the councils but with management of the land, stating that land held in trust by Singapore’s religious council had flourished because of professional management, while another lawyer said that the government’s regional development agencies had the expertise to handle wakaf land.

The charge against the religious councils was led by Malaysian Bar president Abdul Fareed Abdul Gafoor who said that wakaf land asa charitable trust “should not be handled by paper-pushing government department officers”.

He said the sad reality was that wakaf lands were poorly managed and had often run into trouble under the custody of the state religious authorities.

“A prime example of a badly administered wakaf” was a row of shophouses in Buckingham Street, next to the Kapitan Kling mosque, in George Town. Millions had been spent to refurbish shophouses for Muslim businesses to operate there. But what that could have been a booming business district was now a “storeroom” and an eyesore.

Fareed said new Muslim entrepreneurs could not afford the sky-high downtown rent in George Town while those who had committed to rent the shophouses now could not meet their payments and were saddled with arrears. “In normal circumstances, you owe rent for two to three months, they come after you. Now, seven to eight years, some are still there, no change,” he said.

“If you don’t know how to do it, learn from others. You don’t need a study trip to the Middle East or Europe, when good examples of wakaf properties can be found in Thailand and Singapore,” he said in his opening address at the symposium today.

Penang Bar shariah sub-committee adviser Habib Rahman Seeni Mohideen said the problem of mismanagement of wakaf land was not surprising, as there was no one monitoring what the MAINs were doing.

“In the end, the MAINs are trustees. Someone should look into what they are doing. We have this mechanism missing in Malaysia,” he said.

Let donors choose who should take custody, says CAP chief

Consumers’ Association of Penang president Mohideen Abdul Kader said ideally, all wakaf land should be in the custody of someone chosen by the donor, with religious councils providing strict supervision to ensure no mismanagement.

He said donors of wakaf lands have a right to set a vision and mission of what they want to do with the donated lands, not the religious councils.

“I have a right to choose a mutawalli (trustee) and have the right to envision what my wakaf should be used for. When there are laws saying all wakaf lands go to the hands of the Majlis Agama, then I will think ten times whether I want to make it a wakaf or not,” he said.

Mohideen said this would only exacerbate the shortage of wakaf land, as prospective donors would prefer to set up foundations or trusts under their family or name, rather than giving up land for wakaf.

“We are now forcing Muslims who genuinely want to give up their lands for wakaf to use secular means. In the end, all Muslims are in the losing end,” he said.

Mohideen said the role of MAINs was a supervisory and oversight one, only to step in cases of abuse of power and swindling of monies.

In Singapore, professional management has helped wakaf flourish

Another lawyer, Sharifah Shafika Alsagoff, whose family has a long history in Singapore, said wakaf land in the republic had flourished under professional management when the religious council there had taken charge.

She said taking wakaf land away from supervision of the state councils might not be a good idea.

In Singapore, there was a time when individual families controlled their wakaf of their own, which she said led to many issues in the long run. However, when MUIS, the Singapore Islamic religious council, intervened, the wakaf lands there had flourished. She said the success was also attributed to the Muis professionals managing them, which included chartered accountants and real estate experts.

She cited the Alsagoff, Bencoolen and other Arab wakaf lands in Singapore seeing a change after Muis involvement.

“Having wakaf under individual mutwallis (trustees) cannot develop your wakaf into what it can generate. Because each family (of the donor) will want to conserve to benefit themselves.

“We should not close our doors just because we do not like a certain organisation. We should take this opportunity to better the wakaf to work for the community at large,” she said.

Let regional development agencies collaborate with MAINs

In response, Fareed said ideally, all MAINs in Malaysia should have professional managers for wakaf but that was not the case.

“We have inevitably created ‘monsters’ in Majlis Agama, where people without experience or competence in property management are taking care of wakaf, they bring letters and they endorse them. We need a paradigm shift. We need professionals, one of them has to be a property manager, at least,” he said.

He told FMT later that problems arose when five or six officers without experience or competence in managing properties are placed in certain departments for a long time.

Lawyer Haniff Khatri Abdulla suggested that the government’s five regional development agencies be roped in as they were already experts in aiding start-ups, entrepreneurs and poor families to get their business and homes built.

Wakaf land should remain under a third party to avoid familial interests and abuse of power, with state religious authorities as trustees. A collaboration with regional development agencies to create a master plan on wakaf land would benefit the poor Muslims and when possible, even the non-Muslims, in the long run.

“Just give the regional agencies six to 10 months to be legalised, we can help through infrastructure, we have land banks to build houses for the poor, aquaculture. With a wakaf collaboration, we do not need federal authorities to give us more land, as we can tap into the available wakaf land. It cuts down the duplication of costs and limits wastage,” he said.