SHAH ALAM, Feb 24 — Government bureaucracy on Islamic compliance is weighing down the growth of Malay businesses, a Muslim panel said today.
The three-man panel also claimed that intervention by the federal government against free market forces has put Malaysia’s wealth in the hands of a select corporate elite that was friendly towards the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition, instead of it being spread wider.
“I think this is a reality that we have to accept… When our religion is under the power of the states, we are not free. We have to ask for permission for everything,” prominent Islamic scholar Datuk Dr Mohd Asri Zainal Abidin said in a forum here on ‘How the Islamic economy can handle the market’.
Mohd Asri, an associate professor at Universiti Sains Malaysia, said that businesses in Malaysia that declared itself halal must obtain certification from only one government agency, and so blurring the lines between religion and business.
In comparison, he said that Indonesia’s fatwa council acted independently of its government as its members comprised of clerics from diverse academic backgrounds, adding that they could issue religious edicts without fear or favour from its government.
“We are too restricted, until Muslims have lost their innovative abilities in many fields,” the former mufti of Perlis said.
Fellow panellist Tan Sri Muhammad Ali Hashim, the president of Malaysian Islamic Trade Hall (DPIM), lamented the unnecessary burden placed on Malay businesses just to get their outlets certified as halal.
The former president of Johor Corp related that a DPIM member had to wait eight months to get certified, just because there were not enough religious officers to go through the process.
“Religious administration has been hijacked from a personal affair into an affair that is controlled by politicians and men in power,” added Wan Saiful Wan Jan, the executive director of Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs.
Both Muhammad Ali and Wan Saiful shared the view that minimal intervention from Putrajaya would improve Malay businesses, including that of government-linked companies (GLCs).
Muhammad Ali suggested setting up a community-driven system, called corporate waqaf (charity trust), to take over ownership of GLCs and major local companies that were funded using public money.
Instead of focusing on profit for a small group of company shareholders, whom he noted were usually corporate elites, profit under the corporate waqaf system would be channelled back to a larger group of people who funded the enterprise.
Wan Saiful alleged that monopoly in utilities, such as electricity, water, and telecommunication, was a result of the government’s decision to award the operating licences to certain connected parties.
The forum, organised by Malay daily Sinar Harian, proposed that an Islamic economy can improve the involvement of Malay Muslim entrepreneurs.
Malaysia has long operated on an informal power-sharing agreement in which the Malay community holds political power while the Chinese concentrate on the economy.
But the arrangement has created a perception that the biggest slice of the country’s economic pie is in the hands of the Chinese, fuelling discontent among the races.
