Zakat and Its Socio-Economic Merits

The chapter investigates the role Zakat (alms giving) in eradicating poverty around the world. It (Zakat) is one of the five main pillars of Islam; it is the practice of charitable giving by Muslims based on accumulated wealth and is expected to be paid by all practicing Muslims having the financial means. As part of the study, a questionnaire that consisted of five questions to enquire about how Zakat can eradicate poverty was administered to 200 Muslim people living in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Further, the questions were designed targeting the core goals of a Zakat institution that also reflected the Muslims psychometric behavioural aspects. Islam has 1.57 billion followers, making up over 23 percent of the world population (Pew Research, 2011). With such a vast population, the role of Zakat in alleviating poverty is an achievable objective

The project management process of planning and budgeting in public construction projects

Budgeting and scheduling are central elements in all projects through diverse estimates that are defining the level of project outcome success. It is therefore relevant to study how large public construction agencies apply cost and time scheduling in their projects. The study objective is firstly, to comprehend the process of cost and time scheduling in the initial phases of a project. Secondly, to discover which factors stimulate budget and deadline increases in publicly funded construction projects. Applied data collection is based on semi-structured interviews with publicly agency employed project and property managers. Findings demonstrate that too early decision making disrupt the deadline and total cost in the client briefing stage. Due to lack of clear defined project scope and user requirements are too optimistic. The subsequent project stages are thus pushed by an earlier decided deadline and budget, where following complications within the project organizations were found to stimulate budget and scheduling increases.</p