Saudi Arabia asked to open new consulates
Saudi Arabia asked to open new consulates
JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia has suggested that Saudi Arabia open consulate general offices in several regions to ease the embassy's burden of processing documents for the annual haj.
Ahmad Gozali, the director general of Islamic and haj affairs of the Ministry of Religious Affairs, pointed out that most of the problems that occurred during the sending of the hundreds of thousands of pilgrims to Mecca were caused by a lack of visas.
In order to prevent such problems from happening again, Saudi Arabia could open consulates in Indonesia's five haj embarkation points: Ujungpandang in South Sulawesi, Medan in North Sumatra, Surabaya in East Java, Balikpapan in East Kalimantan and Jakarta.
The suggestion will be conveyed in a meeting between the ministry's senior officials with Saudi Arabian Ambassador Abdullah Abdul Rahman Alim tomorrow.
The meeting will cover, among other things, the question of visa processing. "The visas are too great a burden for the embassy," he said.
He pointed out that more Indonesians go on pilgrimage every year. In 1993, 123,000 Moslems went to the Holy Land, followed in 1994 by 158,533 people and 196,000 last year. This year, a total of 194,000 Moslems are scheduled to go.
The number of people going on umrah, a minor pilgrimage which can be performed at other times of the year, will also steadily increase, Ahmad said. This year alone, the Saudi Arabian embassy processed more than 50,000 visas for this minor pilgrimage.
The load could be eased by delegating the visa processing to consulate general offices, Ahmad said.
Meanwhile, reports about chaos in the departures of the prospective pilgrims continued to surface yesterday. The ministry confirmed that out of the 42 flights leaving from the five embarkation points, 1,000 seats were left vacant.
Officials at the airports tried to deal with the problem by scrambling the schedule of flights. Those who are supposed to leave earlier but don't have visas yet were replaced by prospective pilgrims from later flights who already have all of the necessary documents.
Hundreds of would-be pilgrims in Balikpapan, including those with complete documents, were affected by the changes.
Minister of Religious Affairs Tarmizi Taher refused to comment about the chaotic operation. "I'm not the minister of haj. I'm the minister of religious affairs. Go and ask the director general," he told reporters yesterday.(01)