Sharia banks to take over haj funds

Muninggar Sri Saraswati, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Conventional banks may lose trillions of rupiah collected from pilgrims as the government has decided to use the sharia banking system in the fund management of Indonesia's haj pilgrimage starting from next year.

Vice President Jusuf Kalla announced on Monday that Minister of Religious Affairs Maftuh Basyuni had been ordered to start using the sharia system.

"I have ordered the religious affairs minister to do it next year," he said while opening the Sixth International Conference on Islamic Economics and Finance (ICIEF) at the vice presidential office in Jakarta.

Kalla said Indonesia had been developing the sharia banking system, which the government would use to manage the funds paid by prospective pilgrims to go to Mecca in Saudi Arabia.

The country sends more than 200,000 pilgrims annually to Mecca. They are charged to some Rp 25 million (US$2,500) each. The money must be transferred to bank accounts of the religious minister months or even a year before their departure.

The government controls more Rp 5 trillion each year that is collected from pilgrims.

Former religious affairs minister Said Agil Hussein Al- Munawwar is on trial in the Anticorruption Court on charges of misappropriating some Rp 700 billion of haj funds. He could face life in prison if convicted.

Kalla said the change was mandatory to implement the sharia economic system, which had been discussed by Muslim countries for years.

"We don't need more discourses or seminars. It's already enough. What we need is the implementation," he said.

Before the participants of the conference, including the president of the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) Ahmad Muhamed Ali and Bank Indonesia Governor Burhanuddin Abdullah, Kalla said Muslim countries needed to try to implement the sharia system in a bid to improve equality and welfare for all.

"This is a challenge for (the governments of Muslim states) to provide employment, equality and welfare to reduce the gap between the rich and the poor," Kalla said.

He cited a series of terror attacks in Indonesia, which were perpetrated by Muslim suicide bombers.

"Most -- if not all -- of them are young, unemployed people or those from low-income economic brackets. They can easily be brainwashed with false Islamic thought," Kalla said.

He called on the Islamic Development Bank to support the country's attempts to boost the welfare of Indonesians.