Haj operation chaotic enough to merit military help<\/p>\n
By Wisnu Pramudya and Santi W.E. Soekanto<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): When it comes to the troubles marring this
\nyear's haj operation, the buck should really stop at the Ministry
\nof Religious Affairs.<\/p>\n
Gen. Feisal Tanjung, the amirul haj or leader of this year's
\nhaj delegation, made this clear last week when he inspected a
\nnumber of haj dormitories and embarkation points, and found much
\nstill wanting. He thus ended the \"pass-the-blame\" game that has
\nensued since the first jets carrying the first batch of
\nIndonesian's 195,000 pilgrims left for Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on
\nMarch 23.<\/p>\n
Cancelled and delayed flights, demonstrations by pilgrims who
\nfailed to get off on schedule, even a suicide of a prospective
\npilgrim who twice failed to make it, as well as all the extra
\nflights that had to be arranged to accommodate the late pilgrims:
\nthese are only several of the hiccups in this year's haj
\noperation.<\/p>\n
\"They're caused by the lack of cooperation of the central
\noffice of the Ministry of Religious Affairs with other
\ninstitutions, including the Saudi Arabian embassy,\" Feisal said.<\/p>\n
Previously, those problems were blamed on the Saudi Arabian
\nembassy's failure to produce all of the visas on schedule.
\nThousands of pilgrims who were supposed to leave on earlier
\nflights, for instance, failed to go because they lacked the
\ncomplete documents.<\/p>\n
The Minister of Religious Affairs Tarmizi Taher, had earlier
\nspeculated that the embassy had probably been overwhelmed by the
\nprocessing of 50,000 visas for umrah, a minor pilgrimage, the
\nprevious month.<\/p>\n
Miffed, Saudi Arabian Ambassador Abdullah Abdurrahman Alim
\ninsisted that the fault was not his; the embassy had issued
\n125,000 visas days before the first flight was to take off.<\/p>\n
\"Those visas should have been enough for the first flights to
\nproceed smoothly,\" he pointed out. \"And it's not true that the
\nprocessing of visas for umrah interfered with that of the visas
\nfor haj pilgrims\".<\/p>\n
Haj officials then retracted the hints they made about the
\nembassy's contribution to the chaos. Tarmizi said in a statement
\nthat the mistakes were made by his office.<\/p>\n
As indeed they were, Feisal agreed.<\/p>\n
Concerned, Coordinating Minister for Political Affairs and
\nSecurity Soesilo Soedarman recently called a special meeting of
\nministers under his coordination to discuss the haj operation. It
\nwas agreed to involve a security coordinating body in the ongoing
\nhaj operation.<\/p>\n
The Agency for the Coordination of Support for the Development
\nof National Stability (Bakorstanas) was ready to be deployed and
\nhelp in all stages of the operation, Soesilo said.<\/p>\n
\"This is such a massive operation that it's impossible not to
\nmake a single mistake,\" he conceded. \"Sending out all these
\npilgrims is like dispatching 20 troop divisions.\"<\/p>\n
\"This job requires perfect coordination from all institutions
\ninvolved,\" he said.<\/p>\n
Apart from the Ministry of Religious Affairs, eight other
\ninstitution are involved in the operation: the State Secretariat,
\nthe ministries of foreign affairs, justice, health, defense and
\nsecurity, home affairs, transportation and tourism, and
\ntelecommunication.<\/p>\n
A brief look at the haj operation for the past three years
\nwill show why some observers say this is a recurring nightmare:
\nsome things happen year after year.<\/p>\n
Green or brown?<\/p>\n
In 1994, an controversy over the use of ordinary green
\npassports, rather than the specially-issued brown haj passports,
\nstrained relations between Tarmizi and Saudi Arabian Ambassador
\nAbdullah Abdurrahman Alim.<\/p>\n
On the way home from an advance trip to Saudi Arabia, Tarmizi
\nreceived reports that Arabian security guards had arrested a
\nnumber of Indonesian pilgrims entering the country on ordinary
\npassports. He brought the issue to the attention of President
\nSoeharto and the press.<\/p>\n
Saudi Arabian Ambassador Abdullah Abdurrahman Alim heatedly
\ndenied the reports.<\/p>\n
The government, however, decided to forbid Indonesians from
\ngoing on the pilgrimage using ordinary passports altogether.<\/p>\n
Not that this deterred all pilgrims. Some 14,000 people were
\nbelieved to have made arrangements to go on the pilgrimage using
\nthe ordinary green passports. Some of these pilgrims told The
\nJakarta Post that they did not encounter any difficulties from
\nthe Saudi Arabian authorities whatsoever.<\/p>\n
Last year, the number of people registering to go on haj
\nreached a record high: 230,000. A total of 40,000 people had to
\ncancel their trip because the Saudi Arabian government allocated
\na quota of only 190,000 pilgrims for Indonesia.<\/p>\n
The huge number of people who had to be placed on the \"waiting
\nlist\" was the most contentious problem last year. The question
\nwas raised why the government had kept registration open when it
\nwas already clear that not everybody could go.<\/p>\n
Transparency<\/p>\n
The pilgrims on last year's waiting-list were prioritized this
\nyear. The ministry has made sure that no more people had to be
\nplaced in the waiting list by introducing a computerized
\nregistration procedure, and closed registration as soon as the
\nquota has been reached.<\/p>\n
Then the problem of late visas emerged.<\/p>\n
Hadimulyo, a member of the House Commission IX overseeing
\nreligious affairs and education, suggested that many problems in
\nthe haj operation which this year alone involved Rp 1.4 trillion
\n(US$593,471,810) could have been avoided by more transparent
\nmanagement.<\/p>\n
\"The haj pilgrimage is a religious ritual -- but it's also a
\npublic affair, given the huge amount of public money involved,\"
\nsaid a member of the Moslem-based United Development Party (PPP)
\nfaction.<\/p>\n
He identified a number of areas which should be managed with
\nmore openness, the first of which being the haj fee, known in
\nIndonesian by its acronym ONH (Ongkos naik haji).<\/p>\n
This year the haj fee was Rp 7,290,000 (US$3,090), which
\nincludes an daily allowance of 1,500 riyal (approximately US$100)
\nfor the 40 days the pilgrims spend in Saudi Arabia. In 1994, the
\nhaj fee was Rp 7,070,000, including an allowance of 1,700 riyal.<\/p>\n
\"Why did the allowance become smaller?\" he said. \"And where
\ndoes the bank interest go?\"<\/p>\n
Hadimulyo also asked why the government was the sole
\nsupervisor of such a massive operation. \"This year's operation
\ninvolved funds almost equal to the ministry's budget for this
\nfiscal year,\" he said.<\/p>\n
One of the solutions Hadimulyo suggested was establishing a
\nstate-owned company for haj management, thus giving the House of
\nRepresentatives the authority to control the operation.<\/p>\n
Another solution would be to regulate the haj with a special
\nlaw, he pointed out.<\/p>\n
The PPP faction is currently preparing a bill on the haj
\noperation in order to guarantee a smoother operation in the
\nfuture. Expected to be completed later this year, the bill will
\nemphasize the need for private sector involvement in managing the
\nhaj, according to Hamzah Haz, a faction leader.<\/p>\n
\"The private sector will be given a greater role in the coming
\nhaj operation,\" Hamzah told the Post recently.<\/p>\n
If approved, the draft bill would revoke the 1969 Presidential
\ndecree which stipulates that the government is the only
\n\"organization\" permitted to manage haj operations. The
\npresidential decree itself was reformed twice, in 1983 and
\nearlier this year.<\/p>\n
Privatization<\/p>\n
Another idea to improve the operation mooted by observers is
\nfor the government to \"privatize\" the management of the haj.<\/p>\n
One of the reasons for the idea to let private companies
\nhandle the operation is the steady increase of the number of
\npilgrims who choose to go on pilgrimage on trips organized by
\nprivate tour agencies. In 1994, out of 158,533 pilgrims, 4,783
\n(3.02 percent) chose private tour agencies, which cost nearly
\nthree times as much as the trips managed by the government. The
\nspecial trips are known here as ONH plus.<\/p>\n
Last year, 6,457 (3.29 percent) of the 196,548 pilgrims chose
\nthe ONH plus trip. According to Mahfudz Jaelani, chairman of the
\nassociation of 30 Moslem-owned private tour agencies that manage
\nthe haj as well as umrah operations (AMPUH), this year almost
\n7,000 Indonesian pilgrims went to Saudi Arabia on ONH plus trips.<\/p>\n
Mahfudz, however, refused to contemplate the idea of the
\ngovernment relegating this authority to private companies. \"The
\nhaj is not an ordinary trip, it's a religious service,\" he said.
\n\"If even the tiniest thing goes wrong, and a person fails to go
\non pilgrimage, the psychological damage would too great to bear.\"<\/p>\n
\"I could not imagine a private company being entrusted with
\nthe task of managing the pilgrimage of hundreds of thousands of
\npeople,\" he said. \"Even arranging three meals a day for the
\npilgrims is a complicated task for us.\"<\/p>\n
Talk is cheap, and many people seem willing to take advantage
\nof this fact. However, it's the Ministry of Religious Affairs, as
\nthe sole authority in charge of the haj, which will decide how to
\nimprove the operations next year.<\/p>\n
Minister Tarmizi has recently promised that things will get
\nbetter next year.<\/p>",
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