In Jakarta

ALTHOUGH it has been more than a week since the tragic deaths of 21 women in a stampede while trying to receive alms from a philanthropist in Pasuruan, East Java, the issue remains alive today. People are still talking about the tragedy which has raised two key issues - the state of poverty in the country and alms or zakat payment and distribution among the poor.
 
In his state of the nation address last month, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said that his government had been successful in bringing down poverty from 17.7 per cent in February 2006 to 15.4 per cent in March this year. He was confident of bringing down the figure further next year. Statistically, the number of poor people in the country has come down but many critics doubt this as shown by last week's tragedy.

Thousands flocked to the house of the philanthropist by trudging on foot several kilometres from their villages just to get between 30,000 rupiah and 40,000 rupiah. It shows that people were really desperate. They had to fight it out to get the handouts, hence the resulting stampede. It was unlike in the past when the philanthropist distributed his alms to the poor. There was shovelling but no stampede.

But this time around, witnesses said that there were a lot more people in the queue than in the previous years, which means many more people thought they were poor now and deserved to receive the alms. The poor in Pasuruan, like many other poor Indonesians, have been hit by the high fuel prices and the rising prices of foodstaples. Pasuruan is seen as representative of many regions in Indonesia.

Next comes the issue of alms payment and distribution. For many Muslims in Indonesia, they prefer their zakat to be distributed to the poor during the fasting month. Hence many of them visit the homes of the poor personally to give them the alms. Wealthy Muslims like the philanthropist prefer to gather the poor at their premises and give them the alms at one go. Although there are registered bodies that collect zakat, many Muslims, including the philanthropist, do not give their alms to them for distribution to the poor. They simply do not trust these bodies, known here as amil zakat, or alms collector, because the organisations have not been transparent in their work.

The Muslim public do not know how the alms are distributed by the organisations and whether it is done during the fasting month. The suspicion is that part of the zakat money may have either been pilfered or given away to people who are not entitled to the money. Indonesian officials quietly admit that the suspicion is valid and have told managers of zakat bodies to shape up and boost their reputation by being more transparent.

If all Muslims were to pay their zakat to the amil and that the money is distributed properly to the poor, it will be an effective measure in the battle against poverty.