Tahfiz employee denies claims about hoarding food and cash

KUALA LUMPUR: A member of the Darul Quran Ittifaqiyah staff has denied that he accused some of his colleagues of keeping for themselves food and cash given to pupils by their parents.

He was responding to an FMT report that quoted a group of women as saying that one of the men who work at the tahfiz school had told them to give food and money directly to their children instead of to the school.

“He warned us that some in the tahfiz school would keep it for themselves,” one of the mothers said.

“They misunderstood me,” said the man, who spoke to FMT outside the new premises of the school. “What I meant was that the school already has enough. So I told them it’s better to give money and food to other tahfiz schools.”

The school came into the news last Sept 14, when 21 boys and two teachers died in a fire that razed the third floor of its premises.

When they spoke to FMT recently, the group of mothers said the school’s kitchen was packed with foodstuffs that were inaccessible to the pupils. The school would decide what and when to feed them, they said.

“I remember that before the fire, when I was sending my son back to school, he asked if I had any food with me,” one of the mothers said.

“I didn’t. So I walked into the kitchen with him and the kitchen looked like a grocery store.

“No one was there to help. So I picked up some food from there to give to my son. But then I saw a look of fear in his eyes. When I asked what was wrong, he told me, ‘The ustaz doesn’t let us take any food.'”

When the staff member was asked about this allegation, he denied there was such a practice.
“Those are lies,” he said. “We did not keep anything for ourselves and the children were free to help themselves to whatever we had.”

FMT recently also reported allegations by some parents of the fire victims that the school was withholding their share of money that the public donated after the tragedy.

Asked if the school would give the parents their dues, the staff member said, “The headmaster has said the school would give some of the money to the parents and it will do so.” -FMT