Haj fare hike kept minimum, Tarmizi says

JAKARTA (JP): An increase in the official fee for next year's haj pilgrimage will be kept to a minimum, even after the rupiah took a heavy beating over the past few weeks, Minister of Religious Affairs Tarmizi Taher said yesterday.

The increase would not be as high as the rate of depreciation of the rupiah against the dollar, Tarmizi told reporters.

If the haj fee was increased in line with depreciation, and the fee's chief cost components, such as airfare and accommodation in Saudi Arabia, were denominated in U.S. dollars, the cost would exceed Rp 9 million, he said.

The rupiah lost about 20 percent of its value against the U.S. dollar in the last three weeks as pressures mounted against currencies in many Southeast Asian countries.

Tarmizi has been consulting with various parties, including the House of Representatives, to set next year's haj fee.

He is scheduled to meet with President Soeharto to finalize the decision today, before announcing the new fee to the public.

This year, the fee was set at Rp 7.55 million.

The Ministry of Religious Affairs heads the unenviable task of sending Indonesians on the holy pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia.

This year, Indonesia sent nearly 200,000 pilgrims, the maximum quota allotted by the Saudi Arabian government for Indonesia.

The registration period for the haj pilgrimage, opened after the government set the fee in August last year, was closed after only a month because of the large number of applicants.

Tarmizi underscored the requirement to do the pilgrimage, the last of the five Islamic tenets: It is compulsory for those who have the financial and physical means.

If Moslems felt they could not afford the fare, they should not force themselves to go, he said.

Tarmizi said organizers would have to find ways of keeping costs down to keep next year's overall fee reasonable.

"This is the task of economists, not of the minister of religious affairs or journalists," he told reporters who persisted in knowing whether there would be cuts in services to keep overall costs down.

The minister ruled out setting the fee entirely in U.S. dollars as was suggested by the chairman of the Moslem Association of Umroh and Haj Businesses, Mahfudz Djaelani.

Indonesians should respect their own currency, he said, adding: "If not us, then who (will respect the rupiah)?"

Tarmizi attended a reception yesterday to bid farewell to senior officials of the ministry who were entering retirement age or were being assigned to new posts.

Those who entered mandatory retirement age for civil servants included director general for Hindu and Buddhist Community Guidance I Ketut Pasek, director general for Catholic Community Guidance Imam Koeseno Mihardjo, and head of the ministry's Research and Development Agency Hasbullah Mursyid.

Secretary-General Zarkowi Soejoeti is leaving the ministry following his recent appointment as ambassador to Saudi Arabia.

Their replacements had not been announced yet. (10)