Jakarta, NU Online
Stiff competition for a spot in the country’s hajj quota has forced many potential participants to take extraordinary measures — selling their belongings, enduring appalling government-provided services and even paying bribes.

One lawmaker is determined to reform the process.

“The DPR [House of Representatives] is basically in agreement to expedite the revision of the Law on Hajj so pilgrims will get better services in the future and won’t have to pay as much,” said lawmaker Eva Kusuma Sundari of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).

With the world’s largest Muslim population, Indonesia has seen growing numbers of people request to make the annual holy pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia. The demand has forced Saudi officials to impose a quota since the 1970s, with this year’s quota at 211,000 people.

In June, however, 1,420,915 people in Indonesia registered for the trip.

With such a long waiting list, many hopeful pilgrims have had to miss out on the hajj for years at a time. In some provinces, like Aceh, pilgrims have waited up to 11 years to perform the religious rite, a delay that paves the way for corruption and fraud.

Last week, police in Banten arrested three officials from the Ministry of Religious Affairs who allegedly took money from Muslims hoping to get a spot this year.

Dozens of people allegedly paid the officials as much as Rp 50 million ($5,600) each, excluding the actual fare for the trip. This year’s price was set by the government at around $3,537, about $196 more than last year.

Last month, the House’s hajj monitoring team also discovered that a government-hired catering company served spoiled food to pilgrims in Mecca. The information was reported on Tuesday by Ahmad Zainuddin, the deputy head of House Commission VIII for religious and social affairs, who flew to Mecca on Oct. 21 with a team of 18 people.

The government responded to the scandal by sanctioning the caterer, identified as Saudi-based Visitor Taste.

In the struggle to reform the hajj process, Eva also highlighted the high rate of illness among pilgrims. She said the government should extend the hajj quota by 10,000 so people could accompany families and help look after elderly pilgrims.

“Those with illnesses should be monitored,” Eva said. “The government should have kept better records of the pilgrims’ health conditions and alerted authorities [in Mecca].”

PDI-P senior politician Tjahjo Kumolo said the government needed clear selection criteria for hajj participants.

“[Pilgrims] with life-threatening and highly contagious illnesses should be excluded from the quota, as well as those who are old and prone to illness,” he said.

Tjahjo added that although Indonesian pilgrims stayed this year at camps about 2.5 kilometers from the Grand Mosque, the center of hajj activities in Mecca, their camps were about 11 kilometers away last year, a distance he said was too far.

He also called for better food services and medical staff.

“Ideally, every hajj group will be accompanied by at least two doctors, plus nurses,” he said. (jg/dar)