UMNO donated RM8 million to yayasan Tabung Haji in 2017 to be given out to the poor during Ramadan, said the former chairman of the pilgrimage fund, Abdul Azeez Abdul Rahim.

He said the year had seen a drop in palm oil and rubber prices which meant more suffering among the people.

He said the money was distributed in 67 parliamentary constituencies in 28 days.

The Baling MP said this during a dialogue session last night with former Pakatan Harapan minister Mujahid Yusof Rawa.

Azeez was responding to a question about the police reports lodged against him for bribery and for using TH money to fund his political party in 2017.

Mujahid retorted that in the first place, Azeez had broken the law by accepting money from Umno to give to the Tabung Haji foundation.

“That’s the fundamental problem here. My learned friend here is saying he received money from Umno for Yayasan Tabung Haji. He cannot do that,” said Mujahid.

“I want to let everyone here know that Yayasan cannot take money from political parties and he has just admitted that he took RM8 million. It is not allowed to take donations so thank you for confirming this.

“There are police reports against Azeez for misrepresenting the actual financial accounts of TH. This is real and it is up to the current government whether or not prosecute him.”

Azeez denied that his actions amounted to power abuse and misappropriation.

“Every year Tabung Haji pays out zakat to the needy. We had RM7 million to be distributed and it was a time when the commodity prices were dropping, resulting in many people suffering,” said Azeez.

“So what happened was that Umno contributed RM8 million to us to be distributed to the needy that year. They actually wanted to hand over the money to me but I didn’t want that and told them to give it to the TH foundation.”

In the police reports lodged against Azeez in 2018, he is accused of misusing Yayasan Tabung Haji’s funds for political purposes. – August 15, 2020.