Halal Self-Declaration Established by the Halal Fatwa Committee

DDHK. ORG – Self-declaring Halal is stipulated by the Fatwa Committee, not MUI. This relates to Indonesia's target of becoming a food and beverage producer halal world number 1 in 2024.

To support this, the Halal Product Assurance Organizing Agency (BPJPH) Ministry of Religion (Ministry of Religion) has a target of achieving 1 million Free Halal Certification (Sehati) through a self-declaring business actor statement mechanism.

As reported republic, Founder of Halal Corner, Aisha Maharani, assessed that free halal certification with a self-declare mechanism is very good if it is applied to products that are included in the positive list, namely those that consist of ingredients that are not critical from a halal aspect.

The self-declare mechanism becomes worrisome when there is category expansion.

"The expansion of this category makes it critical, because there are also critical materials. Like the expansion of ice cream and bakeries, it says bakeries here are market snacks, but bakeries aren't just market snacks, there are cakes and others," said Aisha, Thursday (2/2/2023).

The self-declare category includes a number of specific criteria, including simple and non-risk products and the production process uses materials that meet ingredients that can be guaranteed to be halal.

This policy is contained in the Decree of the Head of BPJPH No. 33 of 2022 concerning Technical Assistance Guidelines for Processing Halal Products in Determining Halal Certified Obligations for Micro and Small Business Actors Based on Statements of Business Actors.

The next critical point, continued Aisha, is human resources that are less qualified when assisting the process of halal products or PPH. It is known, PPH is a series of activities to ensure product halalness includes the provision of materials, processing, storage, packaging, distribution, sales and product presentation.

"Because there is no monitoring system, there is no code of ethics for PPH assistants, so there are many reports of deviations from PPH assistants. This is a problem too," he said.

The flying hours of PPH assistants are also very much needed to analyze cases and others. Because this problem with PPH assistants can become a loophole if the government, as the regulator of the Sehati and self-declaring rules, is not seriously followed up.

"So what is the quality of the halal certification like? Because the regular (mechanism) is even more detailed, right from my point of view. Is it possible to have three days of training (for PPH) with no experience, that is also very risky," he said.

Aisha also highlighted the determination of product halalness which must pass through the BPJPH Fatwa Committee for the issuance of a halal certificate. It is known that the determination of halal products was submitted by the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI), Provincial MUI, Regency/City MUI, or Aceh Ulema Consultative Council (MPU) to BPJPH as the basis for issuing Halal Certificates.

In the event that the deadline for determining product halalness is carried out by the MUI, Provincial MUI, Regency/City MUI, or Aceh MPU, the determination of product halalness is carried out by the Halal Product Fatwa Committee based on the provisions of the Halal Fatwa.

Determination of product halalness by the Halal Product Fatwa Committee is carried out no later than two working days.

"We also don't know what the people are like about the fatwa committee. Although it is said that there are scholars and academics. For me, it's redundant, yes, there is already an MUI, why should a fatwa committee be established, so there are two fatwa commissions, one under the Ministry of Religion, one under the MUI," he said.

This, he said, is a new problem, even though the Sehati program promises acceleration. He emphasized that the process of issuing a fatwa did not take long.

“Has the MUI not been quick enough? Because actually the fatwa itself is finished in one day, yes, the old one is not in the fatwa but in the certification process and then the decision on the fatwa to halal certificates, "he continued.

Previously, Head of BPJPH Muhammad Aqil Irham said, in accelerating the time for submitting the halal certification process with a self-declaring mechanism, there was a period of assistance in processing halal products.

"If previously the duration of assistance had not been set for how many days, now the assistance process must be completed within 10 days," said Aqil, Sunday (29/1/2023).

Likewise with the provision of halal provisions. If previously this was done by the MUI Fatwa Commission, then with this Perppu submitted for the self-declare process, halal determination is carried out by the Halal Fatwa Committee which will be formed and is responsible to the minister.

Aqil explained, these various improvements were listed in Article 48 of the Job Creation Perppu. There are at least 32 numbers of changes to improve Law No. 33 of 2014 which are listed in Article 48 of the Job Creation Perppu. [DDHK News]