The Shrines of the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh are immovable. Their sacred geography is fixed in Israel, and no serious proposal suggests otherwise. But sacred geography is not the same thing as administrative geography. Tombs do not relocate. Payroll structures can.
The Bahá’í administrative apparatus today operates primarily in Israel, one of the world’s highest-cost labour markets. If we assume approximately 600 staff at an average annual cost of $45,000 per employee – a conservative estimate inclusive of employer obligations – the annual wage bill approaches $27 million. Over twenty years, that amounts to more than half a billion dollars in staffing expenditure.
That number demands scrutiny.
Huququ’llah is not a commercial revenue stream. It is a sacred trust – a voluntary offering given in devotion by the rich and poor alike. When funds are entrusted in that spirit, fiduciary responsibility becomes paramount. The question is not whether staff deserve fair compensation. They do. The question is whether operating in a first-world wage environment is the most responsible use of sacred contributions when alternative jurisdictions could deliver the same administrative functions at a fraction of the cost.
Large corporations answer this question routinely. They relocate administrative hubs, back-office operations, and service centres to cost-efficient jurisdictions – not because they devalue employees, but because they recognize stewardship of capital. Cost optimization is not exploitation; it is preservation of value. Every dollar saved in overhead becomes a dollar available for growth, innovation, or reinvestment.
If 500 of the 600 administrative roles were relocated to Zambia – an English-speaking, politically stable African nation with dramatically lower labour costs – salaries could reasonably be structured at approximately $2,000 for unskilled roles, $5,000 for mid-level staff, and $12,000 for senior management. The weighted average would be roughly $4,500 per employee annually.
Under such a model, 500 staff in Zambia would cost about $2.25 million per year. Retaining 100 essential staff in Israel for the Shrines and custodial functions would cost approximately $4.5 million annually. Total payroll: roughly $6.75 million.
Compared to $27 million, that represents savings of approximately $20 million per year.
Over twenty years, the opportunity cost approaches $400 million to $500 million.
Half a billion dollars.
Opportunity cost is not abstract theory. It is the measure of what could have been done instead. How many schools could have been funded? How many development initiatives launched? How many local communities strengthened? Every year that high fixed administrative overhead continues in a first-world cost environment, those alternatives remain unfunded.
Institutional inertia is powerful. Organizations inherit structures from history and gradually treat them as inevitable. But inevitability and optimality are not the same thing. The fact that administration developed around Haifa does not mean it must remain concentrated there indefinitely. Sacred sites require permanence. Administrative systems do not.
There is also the question of equity.
African believers face substantial visa barriers when attempting to travel to Israel. Relocating the administrative centre to Zambia would not merely reduce costs; it would rebalance access. It would situate global administration closer to one of the fastest-growing and youngest regions in the world. It would signal that Africa is not peripheral to the Faith’s future, but central to it.
This is not charity. It is rational decentralization.
The core issue remains fiduciary responsibility. When sacred funds are entrusted by believers, are first-world wage structures the most responsible long-term model? Is preserving historical administrative geography worth a half-billion-dollar opportunity cost over two decades? Should institutional leadership model adaptive efficiency, or accept inherited cost structures as fixed?
If such a relocation had occurred in 2005, hundreds of millions of dollars might today be available for transformative development rather than absorbed by high fixed overhead. That is not an accusation. It is arithmetic.
Why should the Huququ’llah, paid by believers from countries living in abject poverty, be used to pay American or European standard wages for the office bearers of Baha’i institutions? Why should the poor from the global south fund the first world lifestyle of the Baha’i Elite? Is this the reason why the administration does not publish detailed financial reports in the public domain listing out the payroll expenses of running the administration in an OECD High Income economy? No wonder the administration is so out of touch with the everyday Baha’i who has to bend over backwards for the gentlemen from Haifa.
Sacred geography is immutable. Administrative geography is not.
So the questions must be asked.
Will the Baha’i administration at least in principal either accept that they pay American Salaries using African Huququ’llah money or otherwise make a hard covenant to move the administration apparatus to Africa?
Can the administration quantify what development opportunities have already been lost due to this waste of $500 million over the last two decades? The faithful should remember this each time the administration comes asking for money for a “project” they wasted $500 Million over the last twenty years by just paying themselves more money to lead a fancier lifestyle.
Can service not happen in Zambia? On the other hand, is the Administration a rich mans club for whom Africa is beneath them?
Silence preserves comfort. Questions preserve accountability.
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