Guidelines to be released for Yapeim, Islamic institutions

A set of guidelines will be made available soon following the exposes made against Yayasan Pembangunan Ekonomi Islam Malaysia (Yapeim) by the NGO National Oversight and Whistleblowers (NOW).

The guidelines will be released next year to monitor and advise the charitable body as well as other Islamic religious institutions, Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Asyraf Wajdi Dusuki said today.

Asyraf said a committee tasked with producing the guidelines has been set up.

Apart from producing the guidelines, the committee, appointed by the prime minister, is also tasked to draw up proposals on how to manage Yapeim, he said.

“It is tasked to produce a set of guidelines because we don’t have guidelines to administer religious institutions.

“If we can produce this, it will be the first of such guidelines in the world,” Asyraf (photo) told reporters at a corporate zakat event in Kuala Lumpur today.

In its series of exposes, NOW has, among others, claimed that Yapeim conducted a marriage course in Paris, France, which cost RM290,000.

Its latest expose, NOW claimed that Yapeim owns a golf simulator training centre in Petaling Jaya, despite the core business of the government-owned charitable foundation being to help the needy.

Among those appointed to the committee are the London-based Chartered Institute Management, representatives from the Prime Minister’s Department, the Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit (Mampu), representatives from Khazanah Nasional as well as representatives from government-linked companies and Islamic institutions.

“They were appointed in order to give the best views, so that we can produce an Islamic set of guidelines for Islamic institutions in the country,” Asyraf said.

Asked about the resolution passed by Malay rights group Perkasa to declare the G25 group as deviants, Asyraf declined to comment.

“There are already so many views on G25. If I comment on them, they will become popular,” he said simply.

According to a booklet listing the motions at Perkasa's sixth annual general meeting that was held over the weekend, the decision was made because G25 "spreads liberal and plural beliefs" that could undermine the faith of Muslims. -Mkini