Towards A Unified Zakat System

There is a general agreement that the government shouldplay a major role in appointing and paying the Shariahsupervisory committee (SSC). At the same time, therespondents were against companies appointing and payingSSCs. It should be noted that the scores obtained fromacademics suggest that they would prefer a jointcontribution to the payment of SSCs (by government andcompanies).All the 7 benefits suggested to the respondents wereregarded as important. Overall, the most important itemswere (in order of importance): following one's religiousduty; social justice; promoting charitable organisations;and, economic efficiency. Many variations were noted inrespondents' priorities as to which item was mostimportant. Again, the academics' group seemed to be the oddone out by putting social justice at the top (religiousduty as second) while the other three groups classified itas second (religious duty as first). There was, however, nodifference between respondents from various countries.Respondents agreed with both the possibility and theimportance of the harmonisation of Zakat measurement anddisclosure. This suggests that attempts to harmonise the272