This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia Weekly on July 27, 2026 - August 2, 2026

The release of the Royal Commission of Inquiry’s (RCI) report on the financial imbroglio at Lembaga Tabung Haji (TH) that necessitated a federal government rescue in 2018 is imminent.

The report, completed in late 2023 but kept under wraps, could be released as early as next week. The unveiling of the report, which examines TH’s affairs between 2014 and 2020, comes just ahead of the Negeri Sembilan elections.

According to some individuals, including Datuk Seri Rafizi Ramli, the report was deliberately classified under the Official Secrets Act (OSA) because it was not complimentary to Umno, which was watching over the pilgrims’ fund prior to the 2018 general election.

Setting aside the politics, when the report is released, the core issues that led to the mismanagement — if not worse — of TH’s funds should take centre stage, given the enormous cost to taxpayers and the fact that the fund was established to enable Malaysian Muslims to save in a shariah-compliant way to perform the haj.

The RCI, led by former chief justice Tun Mohd Raus Sharif, took more than 20 months to investigate what went wrong at TH, resulting in a deficit of RM11 billion in net liabilities in 2018. The report, which comprises eight volumes, also examines how the fund paid out dividends in some years even though liabilities exceeded assets — a practice that breached the Tabung Haji Act 1995.

After the Pakatan Harapan government took over in 2018, it set up Urusharta Jamaah Sdn Bhd (Urusharta) to remove the non-performing assets in TH’s books and at the same time inject RM300 million into the fund. The cost to taxpayers has been estimated at close to a whopping RM20 billion.

Even after Urusharta took out a chunk of the non-performing assets, TH was left with some RM2.6 billion of assets to clean up.

Current TH chairman, Tan Sri Abdul Rashid Hussain, who was also a member of the RCI, has implemented more than 70% of the recommendations in the RCI, leading to TH being in a better position now.

But Malaysians need to know why RM20 billion of taxpayers’ money had to be ploughed into TH in the first place. And whether anyone will be held accountable for the losses.

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