House asks government to amend haj law

House asks government to amend haj law

Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The House of Representatives have proposed amendments to Law No. 17/1999 on haj management to restrict the government's role in haj affairs and improve services for pilgrims.

Deputy chairman of the House Commission VI overseeing education and religious affairs Anwar Arifin from the Golkar party said the commission agreed in an internal meeting on Wednesday to push for revision of the law, which gives the government full authority to regulate, conduct and supervise haj services.

"The government's role at present can lead to huge corruption as the government cannot punish itself for any misappropriation of the public funds raised for the haj services," he told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.

"We want the government role to be limited to only creating regulations and supervising haj service, not in conducting the services."

To conduct haj service, the House suggested the government establish an independent body, Anwar said.

According to him, at present, the government, through the Ministry of Religious Affairs, manages Rp 5 trillion (US$555 million) per year from about 200,000 pilgrims, who pay around Rp 25 million each.

"But what happens to the money is very unclear as there is no transparent responsibility," he said.

The main problem in haj management is providing apartments for Indonesian pilgrims in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, Anwar said, adding that the apartments did not meet acceptable standard.

The government audit revealed that the religious ministry was among the government institutions with the most cases of irregularities.

Anwar said the House and the government had agreed in November last year to computerize haj administration in 2004 for the sake of transparency.

"But so far the government has not yet taken any measures to implement the agreement. We have reminded them but they apparently ignored us," he said.

According to legislator Rokib Abdul Kadir of the Reform Faction, at present the management of haj is mainly conducted by the government, while only about 23,000 pilgrims use the services provided by private operators.

"There are problems in private operators, but there are a lot more problems under the government's management," Rokib said.