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May 28, 2006
Australia: Money Worries For Muslim Body
Yesterday's Australian carried the news that the leadership of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils (AFIC) must now prove to Westpac bank that it was elected properly, before executives are allowed access to its accounts.
We reported earlier on the elections of the new leadership. Disputes subsequently arose surrounding the new leadership. Now, a total of five state-based Islamic Councils out of the total of nine have agreed that the elections were not carried out fairly, and their doubts are being taken seriously by the bank.
The rebelling factions are the Islamic Council of Victoria, the Muslim Council of New South Wales, with the support of Tasmania, Christmas Island and ACT (Canberra).
The four councils in the federation who have so far not rebelled against the new leadership are based in Brisbane, Darwin, Perth and Adelaide. The new chairman is Rahim Ghauri, a schoolteacher from Perth, and the Vice Chairman is Dr Waqar Ahmad, a scientist from Darwin.
We reported on May 5 that Neil Kadomi of the New South Wales Muslim Council began his campaign against the AFIC's leadership by casting doubt on the election. In an act of realiation, the leadership recently fired Amjat Mehboob, the chief executive of AFIC, who has been with the organisation for 27 of AFIC's 42 years of existence.
The bank said that the main body of AFIC was currently overdrawn to the tune of $230,000. It wants the situation resolved "as soon as possible". Westpac requires the leadership submit to it the minutes of the council elections to verify the legitimacy of the executive to appoint signatories to bank accounts.
An email statement from Westpac bank read: "We trust that the position will be satisfactorily and speedily resolved." The letter urged Mohammed Berjaoui (a Lebanese from Canberra), the new secretary of AFIC to email the nine member councils to inform them that it may freeze the accounts. Westpac said that freezing of accounts "would leave a number of AFIC schools in serious financial difficulty".
AFIC runs five Muslim schools in Australia, and gains most of its income from rent on the land where these are based. There are schools in Brisbane, Perth, Canberra and Adelaide, but the largest is the Malek Fahd school in western Sydney, which gets $11 million from the taxpayers of Australia.
Neil Kadomi had earlier described the power struggle going on in the executive echelons of AFIC. Kadomi, a Paletsinian, said: "It's a Pakistani against Fijian and we don't want this to happen in the community. We're all Muslim: Arabic, English, Fijian, Indian, Pakistani, we're all Muslim. I don't know why (AFIC) have to be a committee of Pakistanis. It has to be a committee of all nations."
The former chief executive who was sacked, Amjat Mehboob, was from Fiji of Indian descent. The new board is Pakistani-led.
Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at May 28, 2006 7:28 PM
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