Government will review its policy on helping Malay-Muslim Organisations financially, Minister-in-charge of Muslim Affairs Yaacob Ibrahim told Parliament on Monday.
"Given the evolving needs of the community, it is timely to undertake a review of the policy on funding allocation of MMOs, with the objective of ensuring that funds continue to be channelled to priority areas and to MMOs that undertake work in these areas,” Yaacob said.
The review will be carried out over the next few months, he added.
The Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts also explained that one key source of funding for MMO comes from monthly donations to the Mosque Building and Mendaki Fund (MBMF) via the CPF check-off scheme.
Responding to a question posed by Member of Parliament for Ang Mo Kio group representation constituency Intan Azura Mokhtar, he said that the MBMF collects an estimated S$17.8 million each year, of which S$4 million goes to Yayasan MENDAKI, S$0.4 million to the Association of Muslim Professionals (AMP) and another S$0.4 million to other MMOs.
The rest is channelled to the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore (MUIS) to support the mosque building programme and madrasah education.
Like any other charitable organizations, MMOs also rely on donations and the government, which provides dollar-for-dollar matching grants for donations raised by MMOs up to a yearly saving of S$4 million.
These funds are allocated to projects that meet the community’s key priority areas, such as education, youth, family and employability.
The current funding arrangement was put in place since 2001.
Last Saturday, the issue of funding for MMOs was also discussed during a public forum “The future of Singapore: Do Malays have a part?” at Bras Basah Complex.
One of the forum's speakers Walid Jumblatt, who teaches political science at the National University of Singapore, pointed out that today's Malay community could achieve a lot more if they received more support.
Moving forward, he called for an honest reassessment from both the Malays themselves as well as the governemnt about what resources could be given to the community.
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