MJC halaal trust to contest delisting

The MJC Halaal Trust will challenge their delisting by Jakim, Malaysia’s highest Islamic affairs body.

Cape Town - Halaal certifier the Muslim Judicial Council Halaal Trust will challenge their delisting by the Department of Islamic Development Malaysia (Jakim), Malaysia’s highest Islamic affairs body.

This comes amid a storm of criticism from local Muslims who have questioned the trust’s credibility.

At a press briefing at the MJC headquarters in Athlone, the council said it would petition Jakim to reverse its decision of delisting it as a halaal certifier after it failed an external audit last November – the first it has failed in 19 years.

The MJC has been in existence for more than 70 years and its halaal certifying body is one of four main bodies in a multimillion-rand halaal industry in the country that specialises in the certification and endorsement of food commodities and other consumables in accordance with Islamic principles.

Jakim’s audit observed that the halaal authority was not compliant with international standards and identified three main areas of concern which included insufficient expertise of its certification officials, problems with its halaal certification system and its slaughterhouses.

The trust was given six to 12 months to implement its corrective measures to meet the international body’s criteria.

This meant that if the trust exported poultry products to Malaysia, it would not be accepted. The halaal authority’s delisting does not mean it can no longer issue halaal certificates to South African businesses.

The trust said it was not afforded the right of response or “adjust procedural requirements” to conform to Jakim’s standards before the delisting.

MJC president Maulana Ihsaan Hendricks said the halaal authority did provide training to its management.

He said “all products certified by the trust are halaal”, contrary to the Jakim report’s findings that labelled its halaal certification practices as “weak”.

The trust, however, will comply with Jakim’s recommendations, but said it did not agree with the Malaysian body’s findings.

The now disbanded Independent Halaal Review Panel, which was tasked with investigating the trust’s certification processes in 2012, told the Cape Argus it would appear from the Jakim audit that not all the recommendations suggested by the panel have been implemented.

The panel was constructed by the MJC after it faced a barrage of criticism from consumers when a local importer – Orion Cold Storage – was caught relabelling non-halaal products as halaal.

The trust was identified as certifying Orion’s imports.

The trust refused to explain to the media why it did not implement the panel’s recommendations, dismissing the subject for “another time”.

Hendricks said the panel was the “genius of the MJC”, but failed to say why its “genius” was not implemented.

gadeeja.abbas@inl.co.za

Cape Argus