Audited but Unverified: Sharia, Financial, and Impact Accountability in Indonesia's 2024 Zakat and Waqf Reports

Abstract

This study examines how Islamic social finance institutions in Indonesia account for their performance to the public, focusing on the gap between financial reporting and social impact reporting. Directed qualitative content analysis was applied to five public documents from three reporting entities for the 2024 period: the National Board of Zakat (BAZNAS), Dompet Dhuafa as a national zakat management institution, and the same foundation as a waqf nazhir. The coding framework was derived deductively from PSAK 409, PSAK 412, and a three-layer accountability framework, then enriched inductively from the data, yielding thirty-four coded excerpts. The three layers fail in different ways. The financial layer is complete: audited by independent public accountants, with the opinion published. The sharia layer is audited under Government Regulation 14 of 2014 and Ministry of Religious Affairs Decree 606 of 2020, but the results reach only the regulator. On the impact layer, one of twenty-five key performance indicators in the 2024 year-end report measures welfare change, namely 1,350,227 people lifted above the poverty line. That indicator sits at the level of national data consolidation rather than the institution's own operational performance, is absent from the mid-year report, and is presented without disclosure of method or third-party verification. The core problem is therefore not an inability to measure impact but the absence of any mechanism ensuring that impact figures can be trusted. Reform should begin by requiring disclosure of measurement methods, publication of sharia audit results, and the inclusion of the public as an entitled recipient of reports.