KUALA LUMPUR — The Persatuan Pengguna Islam Malaysia (PPIM) has ruled out any collaboration with the Pertubuhan Ikatan Usahawan Kecil dan Sederhana Malaysia (Ikhlas), citing the latter’s deregistration.
PPIM chief activist Datuk Nadzim Johan said the organisation wanted to avoid any questions over its credibility by working with a deregistered non-governmental organisation (NGO).
“We don’t want to complicate matters for ourselves or raise public doubts about our credibility by working with an NGO that has been deregistered,” he told Scoop.
“We don’t want to be seen as collaborating with an illegal NGO. Besides, there are plenty of other NGOs in the country we can work with.”
This comes after the Registrar of Societies (RoS) confirmed to Scoop that Ikhlas had its registration revoked on November 24, 2022 under the Societies Act 1966 for failing to submit its annual financial statements.
Ikhlas president Datuk Mohd Ridzuan Abdullah attributed the failure to the constraints posed by the Covid-19 pandemic, which he said made it difficult to hold meetings and submit financial reports to the RoS.
Nadzim also said PPIM was unaware that Ikhlas had been deregistered when they jointly submitted a memorandum to the Home Affairs Ministry (KDN) recently.
He stressed that this was the first time PPIM had engaged in any programme with Ikhlas, and the collaboration did not involve any financial transactions or fundraising activities.
“They invited us. Sometimes when you’re invited, you just show up. When the issue of deregistration came up, how would we have known? We don’t always have the means to check,” he said.
“We’ve never collaborated with Ikhlas before — as far as I can recall, that was the first time. PPIM has never worked with a deregistered NGO prior to this. In this case, we simply didn’t know. We found it strange; they should have informed us about the RoS revocation.”
Nadzim also said PPIM was unaware that Ikhlas had continued operations under a new entity known as the Secretariat of Ikhlas NGO Coalition Malaysia following its deregistration.
“We didn’t know they had set up this secretariat. It’s rather odd — if they’ve been deregistered, how can they be establishing a secretariat?”
Asked whether the pandemic should be considered a valid reason for NGOs being unable to submit financial reports, Nadzim said this should not be used as an excuse, as it remained the responsibility of all registered NGOs to comply with reporting requirements.
As a consumer advocacy group, PPIM makes a conscious effort to steer clear of sensitive or questionable issues in order to maintain public trust and integrity, he added.
“As NGOs, we should support each other in doing good. That’s all. We avoid sensitive matters or anything that could compromise integrity.
“We’re always careful in our operations. We don’t ask for payment — our aim is to help and serve the public.”
Nadzim cited past cases taken up by PPIM, including the “scratch-and-win” scam that was raised in Parliament, and the consumer boycott against U.S. and Israeli products, which drew a response from Nestlé Malaysia after its sales were affected.
“But we never did anything illegal. It’s more about pushing policy awareness for the people and the government, not sabotage.”
He said he would speak to PPIM members who were involved in the joint programme with Ikhlas to find out what had happened.
“We want to hear their side of the story. We’re concerned about all sorts of possibilities. There may have been information that didn’t make its way up to leadership.”
In January 2023, Ridzuan was charged in the Sessions Court with 12 counts of submitting false claims to the Social Security Organisation (Socso) under the PenjanaKerjaya 2.0 scheme, amounting to RM378,000.
He was accused of submitting documents containing inaccurate salary details, falsely claiming that listed employees had been paid when they had not.
All charges were filed under Section 18 of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) Act 2009. — June 22, 2025