KUALA LUMPUR (Dec 3): Former Tabung Haji Chairman Datuk Seri Abdul Azeez Abdul Rahim denied today that the RM22 million that went into Yayasan Tabung Haji (YTH) in 2017, which the pilgrim's fund alleged had eventually gone on to fund politically inclined activities, did not come from depositors.

Azeez said the money came from Umno, the federal government and several corporate companies, to be given to the 'asnaf', meaning the poor and needy.

He was responding to one of two police reports lodged by Tabung Haji, which the pilgrim fund announced last Friday, alleging that funds over RM22 million from YTH's Ziarah Kasih Ramadhan programme in 2017 had been disbursed for "activities with political inclinations", which contravene the foundation's memorandum and articles of association.

The allegation came following a special audit on YTH, which also revealed that no approval was sought from the Ministry of Domestic Trade, Co-operatives and Consumerism for the money, and no requests were made by YTH for the approval of funds for the programme.

YTH was set up in 2016 to undertake humanitarian aid and to contribute to the asnaf. TH contributed RM7 million of its zakat funds to the foundation's programme, Ziarah Kasih Ramadhan. At the time, YTH's trustees were Abdul Azeez, as well as former TH CEOs Tan Sri Ismee Ismail and Datuk Seri Johan Abdullah, TH chief operating officer Datuk Adi Azuan and chief financial officer Datuk Rozaida Omar.

"In 2017, YTH only had RM7 million to give to the asnafs. In the year itself, there were many requests to have Ziarah Kasih. [But] only RM7 million was from TH. The rest came from various sources. There were monies from UMNO, corporate companies that did not have business [dealings] with Tabung Haji, as well as monies from the Federal Government at that time," Azeez said today, adding that the federal government had given RM4 million to the foundation. 

Azeez said YTH had distributed funds in over 60 parliamentary seats, with over 100,000 recipients in the month of Ramadhan in 2017. 

"I had given statements to all newspapers in 2017. The programme we did was not a secret. It's an open programme which the akyat knew about. It's a Ziarah Kasih Programme," he said. 

"The rest was not TH's monies — especially the depositors. We cannot withdraw the money from their accounts. They have to come [to the counter] to thumb print, in order to withdraw," he said. 

He also denied that money from the foundation had gone into activities with political inclination. 

"We have proof that we had covered over 60 parliamentary seats. We went to the seats in which UMNO did not win," Azeez said, adding one of them is Kota Bharu, Kelantan. Doing so was because the fund wanted to help rakyat regardless of their political ideologies. 

"The important part is that they are asnaf who needs the donation," he said.