PUTRAJAYA: Depositors of the Pilgrims Fund Board or Tabung Haji (TH) are not required to return the “hibah” (bonus) that have been given to them, said Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Dr Mujahid Yusof Rawa yesterday.
He said the reason being that the depositors had no knowledge of the misappropriation of fund in TH.
“It is not a problem by the (hibah) recipients, but that of the management. So, what we’ll do is to rectify the matter and get the management to do the right way.
“Depositors need not have to worry about paying back the hibah,” he told a media conference after the handing over of RM25 million in allocation under the 2019 Budget for registered pondok schools by Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng here yesterday.
Mujahid said this in response to public concern over the “halal” status of the “hibah” received by TH depositors.
This followed a report that Tabung Haji had been illegally paying the “hibah” to its depositors since 2014, which contravened the Tabung Haji Act 1995 as TH had more debts than assets in the previous years.
On the issue of non-Muslim restaurants displaying Quranic verses at their premises to attract Muslim customers, Mujahid said the Malaysian Islamic Development Department (Jakim) and the Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Ministry would act if there were reports.
The issue of a non-Muslim operating a “mamak” restaurant cropped up following a video recording, which went viral, on an incident where an employee of a restaurant at Section 25 in Shah Alam slapped a man for smoking at the premises.
The incident led to the discovery that the mamak restaurant belonged to a non-Muslim, resulting in netizens questioning the halal status of the restaurant concerned. – Bernama
