Instead of giving Rs12,000 as an Eid gift to the Zakat deserving households due to a severe ongoing financial crisis, the government has changed all district Zakat officers and deputy administrators before the Eid holidays, due to which the hopes of as many as 10,000 deserving families of the Rawalpindi district for receiving the Eid have turned into disappointment.
For the first time in 44 years in Punjab, no Zakat-deserving family will get any Eid financial assistance on the occasion of Eidul Fitr.
Sources said the widows, elderly and unemployed persons, who come to the Zakat office every day, have started cursing the government for failing to extend financial support to them in their time of need.
On every Eid, Rs12000 were given as an Eid gift to each of the 10,000 Zakat-deserving households of Rawalpindi district through Easypaisa.
Similarly, Rs6000 each was given to the unemployed persons, Rs5,000 each to the families of leprosy patients and Rs9,000 each to the visually impaired persons.
With only three working days remaining before Eid as Saturday, Sunday and Thursday are holidays, even the issuance of working funds seems impossible. Whereas three days were also wasted due to the immediate transfer of district zakat officers and deputy administrators of 40 districts of Punjab.
These officers will take charge of other districts on Monday, April 17.
Rawalpindi District Zakat Officer Sanaur Rehman has been transferred to Jhelum while Deputy Administrator Zakat Jamshed has been transferred to Sargodha.
The office system of the Zakat Department has also been paralysed with the transfer of all district officers and deputy administrators.
Sources in the Zakat Department told The Express Tribune that even not a single penny of zakat, cut by the federal government from financial institutions across the country on 1st Ramazan, has been given to the District Zakat Councils, while the process of appointing zakat administrators in 1166 zakat committees of the Rawalpindi district has not been completed.
The district zakat committees are still inactive.
Rashida Bibi, a zakat-deserving woman, said that the last time financial assistance was received was in February 2022. “It has been 14 months since February, and no Zakat fund was received,” she lamented.
Another woman, Mehmooda Bibi, said that she has been visiting the Zakat office for nine months and every time she is given an excuse to come next month that she has now been told that the chances of issuance of financial assistance on Eid are quite thin.
Iqbal Ahmed says that the dowry fund was temporarily stopped due to the emergence of the coronavirus pandemic in 2019. “So far, no dowry fund has been given to any poor family from dowry funds due to which marriages of girls have also stopped,” he said.
“Scholarships have also not been given to the talented children of poor families for 20 months,” he added.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 14th, 2023.
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