Well, not exactly. Unless, of course, one considers accountants to be amongst the more disadvantaged members of society.
The Australian Federation of Islamic Councils (AFIC), ostensibly the representatives of Australian Muslims, were placed into administration earlier this year after the squabbling factions (Pakistanis versus Fijians) brought the organisation to a grinding halt leaving bills and wages unable to be paid. Even though many Muslims wouldn’t consider the organisation to be representative of their interests or values, it is nonetheless embarassing that an organisation perceived by many non-Muslims as our representative body, should have self-destructed in such as unpropitious and very public manner.
Now, we read that, just in time for Christmas, the Federal Court has agreed to double the salary of the non-Muslim accountant charged with running AFIC to AUD$130,000.
The administrator of the nation’s peak Muslim body will have his salary doubled to deal with the mess that has left the organisation paralysed and its executive board suspended.The Federal Court yesterday also gave Jamieson Louttit the authority to sort out leadership-related problems within Muslim state councils affiliated with the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils.
Judge Ray Finkelstein approved Mr Louttit’s request for his salary to be doubled to $130,000 to help end the feuding at AFIC ahead of fresh elections for the leadership next year.
Ordinarily, one would denounce this as a shameful waste of community resources but that would imply, of course, that AFIC was doing something other than wasting money before this shameful episode. However, as an independent audit of the organisation revealed earlier in the year (see here for a leaked copy of the auditor’s report), AFIC has been accused of an assortment of calumnies including nepotism, mismanagement, and, most alarmingly, extorting money from Muslim schools through the imposition of exhorbitant rents. This is, of course, to say nothing of the hundreds of thousands of dollars that the organisation has spent on lawyers whilst purusing it various petty disputes — none of which seem to have had the best interests of the broader community at heart. As one of the AFIC people himself declared:
Mr Sali said AFIC’s turmoil, which had cost it hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees over the years, reminded him of war-torn Iraq.
“There’s only two letters that distinguish AFIC from Iraq,” he said.
So what is our exit strategy?
5 comments ↓
AFIC is hopeless, and I fail to understand why his pay is doubled.
The whole organization just seems beyond repair.
There are several options and there are previous models that we can use as a template
1. reform AFIC by making directorships directly electable from each Islamic society with at least 1000 members, and not from state branches. This would make bribing delegates more difficult
2. independent accountants, separate investment advisors and independent auditors with annual published findings
3. 2 year directorships
4. Government pressure to remove link between AFIC and the gravy train, (i.e. Islamic schools and halal meat certification)
5. community scrutiny via this web-site and others to highlight problems
6. Name and shame directors who commit excess
This would involve government muscle to pressure the organisation to reform itself. alternatively they could do it privately through the administrator.
Alternatively they could unilaterally declare it a banned organisation and dissolve it like that.
The Islamic Council of Victoria actually publish all their financials each year which I think is an excellent idea. Of course, a private organisation doesn’t need to make these things public but if you are going to represent a community it can’t hurt to be a little transparent with these things. It will only help your credibility (unless, of course, you have something to hide).
The ICV report can be read here [PDF]
Baybers: They are really good points. But can we do anything to get them implemented? Can AFIC change with such a rotten leadership?
It looked hopeful for a brief period in 2006 when the elections were on. Then it seemed to go haywire from there.
I’ve read that the keys to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem are held by a Muslim. The reason is that the Church’s ownership is held by a number of Christian sects and they can’t get along, so they use an outsider as a neutral arbiter of their rights. It seems to me that this accountant might fill a similar role.
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