PIKIRAN RAKYAT - The Ministry of Religious Affairs violated a number of layered regulations in the management of the 2024 Hajj pilgrimage. This violation has a significant impact and is detrimental to regular pilgrims from Indonesia.

Baca Juga: 'Dosa' Kemenag saat Kelola Haji 2024, BPIH: Langgar UU, Kepres, dan Kesepakatan DPR RI

Chairman of the Working Committee of Commission VIII of the House of Representatives (DPR) of the Republic of Indonesia regarding the Cost of Organizing the Hajj Pilgrimage (BPIH) 1445 H/2024, Abdul Wachid revealed violations by the Ministry of Religion this year.

He said that the ministry violated the agreement in a working meeting with Commission VIII of the House of Representatives and Presidential Decree Number 6 of 2024, regarding Indonesia's hajj quota in 2024.

The reason is that the quota provided by Saudi Arabia increased in October 2023. Indonesia received an additional quota allocation of 20.000 pilgrims from its original 221.000 pilgrims.

This additional was successfully obtained after President Joko Widodo held a bilateral meeting with the Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed Bin Salman. Thus, the total allocation of Indonesia's hajj quota has increased to 241.000 thousand hajj pilgrims.

"The Working Meeting of Commission VIII with the Minister of Religion on November 27, 2023, agreed that our hajj quota for 2024 is 241.000 pilgrims, consisting of 221.720 regular pilgrims and 19.280 special pilgrims," said Wachid, who is also Deputy Chairman of Commission VIII of the House of Representatives.

Problems began to arise since the working meeting of Commission VIII of the House of Representatives with the Minister of Religion of the Republic of Indonesia on March 13, 2024, where the Minister of Religion of the Republic of Indonesia changed the composition of the distribution of the hajj quota by not including the additional quota obtained from Jokowi's meeting with the Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia in October 2023.

For information, the distribution of the hajj quota refers to Article 64 paragraph (2) of Law Number 8 of 2019 on the Implementation of Hajj and Umrah. It is written that the special hajj quota is set at eight percent.

So, in line with the conclusion of the working meeting of Commission VIII of the House of Representatives with the Minister of Religion of the Republic of Indonesia on November 27, 2023, the regular hajj quota is set at 92 percent or 221.720 pilgrims, and the special hajj quota is eight percent or 19.280 hajj pilgrims.

In last year's meeting, the allocation of the hajj quota amounted to 221.000 pilgrims, which was divided into 92 percent or 213.320 for regular pilgrims, and the remaining eight percent or 27.680 for special hajj pilgrims.

Then, the additional hajj quota of 20.000 pilgrims is divided in half, based on the composition of 50 percent of regular hajj and 50 percent of special hajj. The conclusion of the meeting with the Ministry of Religion in March then determined that the proposal to change the composition of the hajj from the Ministry of Religion would only be discussed further.

This means, Abdul Wachid explained, the agreement on the composition of the hajj quota still refers to the working meeting of Commission VIII of the Republic of Indonesia with the Ministry of Religion in November 2023, not March 2024.

"This is clearly in violation of the agreement in the working meeting of Commission VIII of the House of Representatives with the Minister of Religion of the Republic of Indonesia on November 27, 2023, as well as Presidential Decree Number 6 of 2024 concerning BPIH Year 1445H/2024 which states the amount of the hajj budget as mandated in the meeting in question," he said, who is also a member of the Hajj Supervisory Team of the House of Representatives of the Republic of Indonesia.

With the high queue for regular hajj, he asked the Minister of Religion to comply with the distribution of additional quotas with a composition of 92 percent and eight percent. He warned the ministry not to replace it with a 50-50 percent composition unilaterally.

"The queue for regular pilgrims has been very long, there is even one district in South Sulawesi where the queue has reached 45 years. That's how can we solve it immediately if the legal orders, the mandate of the Presidential Decree, and the agreement in the working meeting of Commission VIII of the House of Representatives of the Republic of Indonesia are violated," he said.*** (Politeknik Negeri Bandung/Sintia Yuliana)