Egypt bans donation boxes in mosques and turns them into bank accounts

Egypt bans donation boxes in mosques and turns them into bank accounts

Donations are linked to a request for restoration of a mosque or sponsorship and others.

On Sunday, the Ministry of Awqaf in Egypt began implementing the ban on donation boxes in mosques, to limit it to bank accounts, with a temporary exception for “vote funds”, amid fears that donations will decline in light of the lack of awareness of banking transactions.

Endowments directorates held a meeting with mosques’ boards of directors to open donation boxes and limit them to the ministry’s 10-day deadline, according to the Egyptian newspaper Al-Watan.

While the newspaper "Al-Youm Al-Sabaa" reported that the directorates moved to implement this order "in all Egyptian governorates", and their movements, other than the meetings, included the formation of expanded committees to pass on the mosques and implement the decision.

And temporarily, the Minister of Endowments, Mukhtar Jumaa, excluded donation boxes in mosques for vows from the decision until coordination with the sheikhs of the Sufi orders responsible for them according to the law, and a mechanism for moving to donating through bank accounts was discussed.

Gomaa said that Egypt has 143,000 mosques, (of which 190 mosques have 220 official vow boxes), and before 2014, the total collected from the vow funds was 6 million pounds (382,000 dollars), and when the governance was conducted, it reached about 30 million dollars (1.9 million dollars).

He stressed that the government and its supervisory bodies should be aware of the movement of those funds.

Donations are linked to a request to restore a mosque, sponsorship, and others. As for “vote boxes” they are found in mosques in which “good parents” or members of the “family of the Prophet” such as Mr. Hussein and Mrs. Aisha are buried, and they receive the vows of citizens if they achieve what they hope from God, such as childbearing and marriage. .

While Noah Al-Esawy, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Awqaf, said in televised statements Saturday that the implementation of the decision will take place "within a period not exceeding 10 days", to implement the state's plan in the governance of financial matters to achieve the highest levels of transparency and integrity in donating to various funds.

While Sheikh Alaa Abu al-Azaim, a member of the Supreme Council of Sufi Orders and Sheikh of the Azmiyya Order, had reservations about applying the decision later to the “vows boxes.”

In statements to Al-Watan, Abu Al-Azaim considered that it is not permissible to allocate any bank account to "vote funds", because this will prevent many people from donating to them, due to the lack of awareness and culture among some of them of how to donate through bank accounts.