Jakarta (BPJPH) --- As part of accelerating the halal certification, the Minister of Religious Affairs (MORA) Yaqut Cholil Qoumas has appointed the Task Team for the Halal Product Fatwa Committee on March 20, 2023. This committee immediately carried out its duties and held its first meeting on March 25, 2023.
"Since being set by Gus Menteri (Minister of Religious Affairs), the Fatwa Committee team started working immediately, and in approximately 40 days has produced 78,948 halal decisions for self-declare halal certificates," said the Head of the Halal Product Assurance Organizing Body (BPJPH) of the MORA, Muhammad Aqil Irham, in Jakarta, Tuesday (9/5/2023).
"This means that on average in a day the Fatwa Committee team issues nearly 2,000 halal decisions. Although it still needs to be increased, we must appreciate this achievement in order to encourage our efforts to help business actors, especially micro and small enterprises (MSEs) in obtaining halal certificates," said Aqil add.
This amount includes applications for self-declare halal certification that have been submitted since 2022. Aqil explained, the Acting Team of the Halal Product Fatwa Committee is the government's effort as a breakthrough to accelerate halal certification. The decisions of the Fatwa Committee is carried out in accordance with the provisions of Perppu No.2 of 2022 which stipulates that the determination of product halalness for applications for halal certification is carried out by the Business Actor's statement mechanism or self-declare by the Halal Product Fatwa Committee.
"Before this committee was formed, the Minister of Religion issued a Decree of the Minister of Religioous Affairs (KMA) regarding the Task Team for the Halal Product Fatwa Committee," explained Aqil.
The Acting Team for the Halal Product Fatwa Committee was appointed based on the Decree of the Minister of Religion of the Republic of Indonesia Number 297 of 2023 concerning the Task Force Team for the Halal Product Fatwa Committee and is fully responsible to the Minister of Religious Affairs through the Head of BPJPH. This team consists of scholars from various community organizations and academics. In its work process, the team of 25 people is also strengthened by the Committee Secretariat.
"The role of this Committee is so strategic, because it does not only convene for product halal fatwa on the self-declare scheme, but also on the regular scheme which has exceeded the time according to the mandate of the Perppu Ciptaker which was then replaced by the issuance of Law Number 6 of 2023 on March 31,” Aqil explained.
This task, he continued, was carried out in the event that the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI), the provincial MUI, the regency/city MUI, or the Aceh Ulema Consultative Council exceeded the time limit for determining product halalness in accordance with statutory provisions.
Aqil also said that BPJPH continues to make efforts to make breakthroughs in accelerating halal certification. One of them is by continuing to improve service systems that are integrated with digitization and automation to facilitate all service business processes, including the process of determining the fatwa of the halal product.
"With this integrated system, when the Fatwa Committee determines product halalness, automatically at that time the Sihalal system will issue halal certificates digitally," added Aqil.
"Furthermore, business people can download the digital halal certificate online through their accounts on Sihalal," said Aqil. []