Dr Amjad Saqib informs webinar about philosophy and works of Akhuwat Foundation

With a 99.9 percent recovery rate of its interest-free Islamic microfinance programme, the Akhuwat Foundation has been running the most successful and largest Qarz-e-Hasna scheme in the world.

This was stated by the founder and executive director of the foundation, Dr Muhammad Amjad Saqib, as he spoke at a webinar jointly organised by the Akhuwat Foundation and National Forum for Environment and Health.

Dr Saqib said that since its inception in 2001, Akhuwat had distributed a sum of Rs140 billion as interest-free loans to people of the deprived communities. He explained that Rs140 billion had been distributed in the form of 4.3 million small loans to deserving people to start businesses to earn their livelihood.

He said the interest-free loan programme of Akhuwat had enabled hundreds of thousands of people to secure basic necessities of life enabling them to live with dignity and honour. Dr Saqib informed the webinar that the philosophy of Akhuwat was based on the concept of Mawakhat in Islam, according to which affluent people should take care of the have-nots in their society.

He said that besides the microfinance programme, Akhuwat also offered interest-free loans to disadvantaged families for house construction and education. He added that the foundation had also been in the process of building Pakistan’s first fee-free university for students from all the provinces. He said loan repayments to Akhuwat were again utilised to help out the needy people.