Al Buraimi: The second Zakat Committees Forum kicked off today under the title (Zakat Sector, Future Vision), which is organized by the Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs and will continue for three days in the Wilayat of Al Buraimi.
The opening ceremony witnessed the launch of a new package of electronic services on the Zakat Services Portal, as part of the Ministry’s efforts to enhance the governance, development and digitization of the Zakat sector.
The opening ceremony of the forum was sponsored by His Excellency Dr. Nasser bin Rashid Al Maawali, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Economy.
This forum is organized annually in an effort to develop the performance, governance and institutionalization of the 66 Zakat Committees in the various governorates of the Sultanate of Oman, in order to achieve the highest standards of quality and efficiency in work according to the best modern practices in this sector.
The forum, in its second season, aims to open new horizons for developing and raising the quality of zakat services, and ensuring the continuity and sustainability of volunteer work in the zakat field; increasing the percentage of workers in it, providing training, qualification and appropriate education opportunities for them, and providing appropriate work mechanisms that enhance the community’s confidence in zakat committees, and raising the morale of workers in the zakat field, by providing a suitable and attractive environment for work in this field, and working to increase the potential to support the zakat sector in growth and increasing revenues, and seeking to provide more services and programs to develop this sector, and exerting more efforts to continue on the path of excellence and creativity.
The forum seeks to create a stimulating environment for social responsibility programs, civil voluntary contributions, and women and youth support programs that aim at economic and social empowerment. Enhancing social protection and community responsibility requires organizing the efforts of the relevant institutions and community responsibility projects and their governance, defining their principles and areas and managing them effectively and efficiently, and setting a framework for the principle of effective partnership between the government and private sectors and civil society institutions to keep pace with the strategies of Oman Vision 2040.
The forum includes a number of working papers and dialogue sessions related to Zakat and the future vision in various Zakat sectors and the frameworks regulating them. It includes 5 dialogue sessions distributed over 3 consecutive days.
The first day discusses the complementary relationship between Zakat and Waqf, and the second axis is Zakat and Taxes: Legislation and Applications with the participation of the Tax Authority.
The second day includes the controls for zakat entitlement and the second axis is developing the legal and media aspects of zakat committees.
The third day includes the investment view of zakat funds and empowering eligible families, as well as the results and recommendations.
It is worth mentioning that the forum also seeks to exchange experiences between members of the Zakat Committees in the management of committee affairs in the Sultanate of Oman and those entitled to it according to the mechanisms of social research on registered cases, and to know the developments and changes in the controls of legal entitlement to Zakat, and the proposed procedures to keep pace with them according to legal, administrative and technical standards, and to measure the impact of various initiatives and projects.
