THE tail end of the month of fasting is a time of celebration for the country. It is also the time of the year that shopkeepers eagerly look forward to since more money is spent on expensive clothes, food and other accoutrements of a healthy, thriving lifestyle than perhaps at any other time. The quantity of money that is spent during this period is so large that the State Bank of Pakistan is compelled to instruct the banks to make special arrangements to ensure that ATM machines near major shopping areas are well stocked and replenished during the holidays. Demand for fresh currency notes skyrockets, and the government printing presses run overtime.

A small industry is built around the month of Ramazan, and in purely economic terms alone, the month brings with it a groundswell of economic activity that is comparable in size to the summer wheat harvest or any other major cyclical event. One of the largest impacts of the arrival of the holy month is the massive withdrawals that current accounts see, as people rush to empty out their accounts to prevent the mandatory zakat deduction from eating into their disposable incomes. Once the period for zakat deduction passes, the money flows back into the accounts with equally astonishing speed. It is not as if people hesitate to give zakat. The fact that papers are full of advertisements from various institutions asking for zakat donations is proof enough that a lot of money is given for philanthropic causes during this month.

But what is clear is that people do not want to direct their zakat through the government. That is understandable enough. Consider, for instance, that nowhere does the government reveal how much money is collected via zakat deductions every year. The websites of the zakat and ushr departme nts tell us nothing about who the beneficiaries are of the various schemes through which they channel the funds, and how those beneficiaries are selected. In contrast, other schemes, such as the Benazir Income Support Programme, have a highly developed mechanism for determining eligibility. Nothing of the sort exists for zakat funds. And to top it off, there is the philosophical question of our times: is it really the government’s job to be collecting and distributing zakat? There is no doubt that paying zakat is a religious obligation for Muslims. But surely, individuals are free to choose who to give their zakat to. For one, the law can be amended to make participation on an opt-in basis, giving people the choice to have their zakat deducted by the state as opposed to the current practice of opting out. Second, and equally important, the least we can expect is more transparency in the utilisation of the funds, and more rigour in the selection of beneficiaries.

Published in Dawn, July 11th, 2014