Jakarta – A member of the House of Representatives' special committee on the haj, Iskan Qolba Lubis, questioned the Religious Affairs Ministry on Thursday on the reasons behind the late departure of some haj pilgrims.
"The haj departure is handled like in an orderly queue. What does that mean? If a pilgrim dies or withdraws, those next in line should automatically advance," Iskan said during a hearing with the ministry's head of the regular haj subdirectorate, Amir Hamzah, on Thursday, as reported by kompas.com.
"So [the pilgrims next in line] should have left earlier but they instead left later."
Iskan highlighted the case of a pilgrim who was unable to depart for the haj during the COVID-19 pandemic because of a reduced haj quota.
The pilgrim was rescheduled to depart in 2023 but the departure was again postponed by two years.
In July, the House established a committee to make an inquiry into the government's management and organization of this year's haj, amid reports of poor services received by pilgrims and the alleged misuse of the pilgrim quota.
Iskan alleged that the recurring departure issue might be the result of some party interfering to manipulate the sequence of haj departures.
"This means there are 'traffic officers' controlling the departure of pilgrims not according to the orderly queue, and that's what you need to respond to," he said.
Iskan said such issues created a sense of injustice for pilgrims whose departures had been postponed. He called for clearer explanations and rectifications for the pilgrims.
He added that the ministry, not its regional offices, had the authority to cancel haj departures. "Therefore, it is the central authority's responsibility," Iskan said, as quoted by tempo.co.
Amir responded that he would verify the data provided by Iskan, saying that the ministry's haj application only provided estimated departure schedules, while the official schedules were posted on the ministry's website.
"We will check it first," Amir said.