Haj fee to rice despite more efficiency

Muninggar Sri Saraswati, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Haj pilgrims will have to pay more in the upcoming haj season, even though the government has recorded Rp 525 billion (US$54.17 million) in unused haj funds from the last pilgrimage.

Each pilgrim will have to pay between $2,600 and $2,800, depending on their places of residence during the one-month trip to Mecca in Saudi Arabia. Last season, Indonesian pilgrims paid $60 less.

Minister of Religious Affairs M. Maftuh Basyuni said on Thursday that the increase was unavoidable due to higher oil prices, although the government had managed to reduce domestic costs related to the pilgrimage.

"We are sorry we could not fulfill our hopes of not increasing the haj fee this year," he told the press after a meeting with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

The increase comes as the interdepartmental anticorruption team set up by the President continues its investigation into the alleged misuse of unused haj funds accumulated between 2001 and 2004 amounting to Rp 684 billion. Instead of depositing the funds in one account, as was required under law, the money was deposited in a number of different bank accounts, some of which were unrelated to the haj.

Former religious affairs minister Said Agil Hussein Al- Munawwar and the ministry's former director general for Islamic guidance and haj management, Taufiq Kamil, have been named suspects in the case and have been detained.

The team also found indications that the haj fee of up to Rp 25 million per pilgrim exceeded the real cost of the pilgrimage.

Maftuh claimed that the ministry had managed to cut domestic costs from around Rp 900,000 last year to Rp 700,000. Domestic costs involve the cost of accommodation, meals and transportation prior to departure for Mecca.

"There is nothing the government can do about the soaring oil prices and the weakening rupiah. Moreover, the cost of living in Saudi Arabia is also going up," said Maftuh, who was formerly the Indonesian envoy to Saudi Arabia.

He said air fares accounted for most of the increase in the haj fee.

The President asked Maftuh during their meeting to do his best to explain the fee increase to the public, the minister said.

The Saudi government has set the quota for Indonesia at 205,000 pilgrims for the upcoming season, which starts next January.

Maftuh said that several changes had been made to haj management and policies earlier this year in a bid to improve services to pilgrims.

Among the changes were a reduction in the number of officials guiding the pilgrims from 418 last year to 306. There would be no state officials given free trips to Mecca, except for a few persons heading the delegation.

Maftuh said the unused haj funds left over from the last pilgrimage would be spent on the construction of dormitories for students of state Islamic universities in Surabaya, Jakarta, Yogyakarta, Medan and Makassar, and an office building at the ministry's headquarters on Jl. Thamrin, which would be put up for lease after construction was completed.

The construction of each dormitory would cost Rp 5 billion, while the high-rise office building would cost about Rp 300 billion.