Haj operation chaotic enough to merit military help

Haj operation chaotic enough to merit military help

By Wisnu Pramudya and Santi W.E. Soekanto

JAKARTA (JP): When it comes to the troubles marring this
year's haj operation, the buck should really stop at the Ministry
of Religious Affairs.

Gen. Feisal Tanjung, the amirul haj or leader of this year's
haj delegation, made this clear last week when he inspected a
number of haj dormitories and embarkation points, and found much
still wanting. He thus ended the "pass-the-blame" game that has
ensued since the first jets carrying the first batch of
Indonesian's 195,000 pilgrims left for Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on
March 23.

Cancelled and delayed flights, demonstrations by pilgrims who
failed to get off on schedule, even a suicide of a prospective
pilgrim who twice failed to make it, as well as all the extra
flights that had to be arranged to accommodate the late pilgrims:
these are only several of the hiccups in this year's haj
operation.

"They're caused by the lack of cooperation of the central
office of the Ministry of Religious Affairs with other
institutions, including the Saudi Arabian embassy," Feisal said.

Previously, those problems were blamed on the Saudi Arabian
embassy's failure to produce all of the visas on schedule.
Thousands of pilgrims who were supposed to leave on earlier
flights, for instance, failed to go because they lacked the
complete documents.

The Minister of Religious Affairs Tarmizi Taher, had earlier
speculated that the embassy had probably been overwhelmed by the
processing of 50,000 visas for umrah, a minor pilgrimage, the
previous month.

Miffed, Saudi Arabian Ambassador Abdullah Abdurrahman Alim
insisted that the fault was not his; the embassy had issued
125,000 visas days before the first flight was to take off.

"Those visas should have been enough for the first flights to
proceed smoothly," he pointed out. "And it's not true that the
processing of visas for umrah interfered with that of the visas
for haj pilgrims".

Haj officials then retracted the hints they made about the
embassy's contribution to the chaos. Tarmizi said in a statement
that the mistakes were made by his office.

As indeed they were, Feisal agreed.

Concerned, Coordinating Minister for Political Affairs and
Security Soesilo Soedarman recently called a special meeting of
ministers under his coordination to discuss the haj operation. It
was agreed to involve a security coordinating body in the ongoing
haj operation.

The Agency for the Coordination of Support for the Development
of National Stability (Bakorstanas) was ready to be deployed and
help in all stages of the operation, Soesilo said.

"This is such a massive operation that it's impossible not to
make a single mistake," he conceded. "Sending out all these
pilgrims is like dispatching 20 troop divisions."

"This job requires perfect coordination from all institutions
involved," he said.

Apart from the Ministry of Religious Affairs, eight other
institution are involved in the operation: the State Secretariat,
the ministries of foreign affairs, justice, health, defense and
security, home affairs, transportation and tourism, and
telecommunication.

A brief look at the haj operation for the past three years
will show why some observers say this is a recurring nightmare:
some things happen year after year.

Green or brown?

In 1994, an controversy over the use of ordinary green
passports, rather than the specially-issued brown haj passports,
strained relations between Tarmizi and Saudi Arabian Ambassador
Abdullah Abdurrahman Alim.

On the way home from an advance trip to Saudi Arabia, Tarmizi
received reports that Arabian security guards had arrested a
number of Indonesian pilgrims entering the country on ordinary
passports. He brought the issue to the attention of President
Soeharto and the press.

Saudi Arabian Ambassador Abdullah Abdurrahman Alim heatedly
denied the reports.

The government, however, decided to forbid Indonesians from
going on the pilgrimage using ordinary passports altogether.

Not that this deterred all pilgrims. Some 14,000 people were
believed to have made arrangements to go on the pilgrimage using
the ordinary green passports. Some of these pilgrims told The
Jakarta Post that they did not encounter any difficulties from
the Saudi Arabian authorities whatsoever.

Last year, the number of people registering to go on haj
reached a record high: 230,000. A total of 40,000 people had to
cancel their trip because the Saudi Arabian government allocated
a quota of only 190,000 pilgrims for Indonesia.

The huge number of people who had to be placed on the "waiting
list" was the most contentious problem last year. The question
was raised why the government had kept registration open when it
was already clear that not everybody could go.

Transparency

The pilgrims on last year's waiting-list were prioritized this
year. The ministry has made sure that no more people had to be
placed in the waiting list by introducing a computerized
registration procedure, and closed registration as soon as the
quota has been reached.

Then the problem of late visas emerged.

Hadimulyo, a member of the House Commission IX overseeing
religious affairs and education, suggested that many problems in
the haj operation which this year alone involved Rp 1.4 trillion
(US$593,471,810) could have been avoided by more transparent
management.

"The haj pilgrimage is a religious ritual -- but it's also a
public affair, given the huge amount of public money involved,"
said a member of the Moslem-based United Development Party (PPP)
faction.

He identified a number of areas which should be managed with
more openness, the first of which being the haj fee, known in
Indonesian by its acronym ONH (Ongkos naik haji).

This year the haj fee was Rp 7,290,000 (US$3,090), which
includes an daily allowance of 1,500 riyal (approximately US$100)
for the 40 days the pilgrims spend in Saudi Arabia. In 1994, the
haj fee was Rp 7,070,000, including an allowance of 1,700 riyal.

"Why did the allowance become smaller?" he said. "And where
does the bank interest go?"

Hadimulyo also asked why the government was the sole
supervisor of such a massive operation. "This year's operation
involved funds almost equal to the ministry's budget for this
fiscal year," he said.

One of the solutions Hadimulyo suggested was establishing a
state-owned company for haj management, thus giving the House of
Representatives the authority to control the operation.

Another solution would be to regulate the haj with a special
law, he pointed out.

The PPP faction is currently preparing a bill on the haj
operation in order to guarantee a smoother operation in the
future. Expected to be completed later this year, the bill will
emphasize the need for private sector involvement in managing the
haj, according to Hamzah Haz, a faction leader.

"The private sector will be given a greater role in the coming
haj operation," Hamzah told the Post recently.

If approved, the draft bill would revoke the 1969 Presidential
decree which stipulates that the government is the only
"organization" permitted to manage haj operations. The
presidential decree itself was reformed twice, in 1983 and
earlier this year.

Privatization

Another idea to improve the operation mooted by observers is
for the government to "privatize" the management of the haj.

One of the reasons for the idea to let private companies
handle the operation is the steady increase of the number of
pilgrims who choose to go on pilgrimage on trips organized by
private tour agencies. In 1994, out of 158,533 pilgrims, 4,783
(3.02 percent) chose private tour agencies, which cost nearly
three times as much as the trips managed by the government. The
special trips are known here as ONH plus.

Last year, 6,457 (3.29 percent) of the 196,548 pilgrims chose
the ONH plus trip. According to Mahfudz Jaelani, chairman of the
association of 30 Moslem-owned private tour agencies that manage
the haj as well as umrah operations (AMPUH), this year almost
7,000 Indonesian pilgrims went to Saudi Arabia on ONH plus trips.

Mahfudz, however, refused to contemplate the idea of the
government relegating this authority to private companies. "The
haj is not an ordinary trip, it's a religious service," he said.
"If even the tiniest thing goes wrong, and a person fails to go
on pilgrimage, the psychological damage would too great to bear."

"I could not imagine a private company being entrusted with
the task of managing the pilgrimage of hundreds of thousands of
people," he said. "Even arranging three meals a day for the
pilgrims is a complicated task for us."

Talk is cheap, and many people seem willing to take advantage
of this fact. However, it's the Ministry of Religious Affairs, as
the sole authority in charge of the haj, which will decide how to
improve the operations next year.

Minister Tarmizi has recently promised that things will get
better next year.