Ministry Admits Dipping Into Hajj Fund Accounts

Jakarta Globe, Nurfika Osman | January 23, 2011

The Ministry of Religious Affairs said on Sunday that it had used part of the interest earned from hajj funds to pay for its own officials’ trips to Mecca.

This followed Indonesia Corruption Watch’s claim on Friday that the ministry had used hajj funds to pay bonuses to officials, as well as to cover their transportation, accommodation and lodging costs while on the hajj in Saudi Arabia.

Abdul Ghafur Djawahir, secretary of the ministry’s hajj directorate, told the Jakarta Globe that his office needed to dip into the funds due to budget constraints.

“We use that money to cover the costs of officials who help us in Mecca, Medina and the Plain of Arafah, because what we get from the state budget is not enough to cover our needs,” he said.

“Besides, we believe the people who can afford to go on the hajj are those who are financially secure, even though we realize many people had to save for years to go on the pilgrimage.”

He said, however, that the bulk of the funds used to finance officials’ trips to Mecca came from the ministry budget.

If the ministry did not use some of the interest from the funds, he added, “we’d never be able to offer a satisfactory hajj service.”

Every year, thousands of pilgrims pay the ministry a deposit to register for the pilgrimage. The fee was previously set at Rp 20 million ($2,200) but was raised to Rp 25 million last year.

The fees are deposited in the ministry’s accounts at state-owned banks, and can be stored for years before a pilgrim gets a slot. The total fund is now estimated to hold Rp 1.2 trillion.

Hopefuls have to wait several years before they can go on the state-organized pilgrimage due to travel quotas under the Hajj Management Law.

As of August 2010, the ministry said there were about 1.17 million people on the waiting list.

Abdul said the ministry hoped to get more money from the state budget for the hajj next year.

“We’re in the process of drafting an amendment to the law on hajj fund management that will fix some loopholes,” he said.

The amendment is already on the House of Representatives’ priority list, he added.

Last year, the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) issued a report identifying 48 flaws in the ministry’s management of the hajj in 2009.

One of the major problems cited in the report was the lack of transparency in the payment of interest made on fees from pilgrimage applicants.

At the time, Abdul told the Globe that the KPK’s findings just pointed to weaknesses in the system that needed to be fixed and which were not related to graft.