Year in and out, irrespective of which party is in government, when the hajj season comes around it is as though a bad track is played and Muslims dance to it any which way.
From the politics of it, through to the hajj village crisis, the hustle here and in Saudi Arabia and the headache associated with pilgrims return home, top it up with the more often than not, the unbalanced hajj board accounts – next year same sequence will be ‘pon the replay.’
In the light of the national cathedral brouhaha, hajj has gained some traction vis-à-vis the blabbing about government interference in hajj as a seeming justification for investment in a Christian religious venture.
For the record, I support the national cathedral idea in principle; the board should consider a mosque somewhere in the structure. Aside from the planned bulldozing of multiple structures to make way for it, may the good lord protect its funders and builders, Amen!
The government hand in hajj is not a new debate, just a recurring one – almost now like a malignant tumour. Turns out that the tumour will linger on for a while thanks to the politics of hajj.
In 2013: hajj was compared to Israel trip for 200 pastors
The last I wrote of it was when the then Methodist moderator Prof. Martey played a similar card when the erstwhile government reportedly decided to sponsor some 200 Christian leaders to Jerusalem in 2013.
Back then I explained why the Israel trip was incomparable to the hajj – both in form and structure. A key point being that in the case of hajj, prospective pilgrims coughed up cash sums in dollar equivalents to fund their trips.
I made a copious point about the politics involved in the hajj being a headache that governments needed to deal with. It is that politics that continue to beset the organization of the pilgrimage year in and out.
2018 hajj fare and government ‘political’ subsidy
According to a Ghana News Agency, GNA, report of 14-03-2018 – the hajj board led by former lawmaker I. C. Quaye released a fare of 15,000 cedis for 2018 same as for 2017 (about $3,450).
He is quoted as saying the actual fare was to be 19,500 but government absorbed 4500 for each pilgrim. He went on to blamed the price hike on Saudi Arabia’s policies. The government was only playing political correctness with the fare absorption.
I’d explain. 4500 is a lot of money but not for someone who has raised 15,000. I agree it’d have scuttled plans of a number of pilgrims but then again, nowhere is hajj obligated for a person without the wherewithal. Capacity is a central consideration to the pilgrimage.
But for the sake of political fortunes, the government refused to look in the faces of people and tell them the bitter truth, rather opting to use taxpayers monies to subsidize the journey of thousands.
As for the fact that we would most likely go down this path in months or years to come, it’s just a matter of time. In so far as some people refuse to be educated on what goes into the hajj, we’d do well to always educate them for all its worth.
Governments should toughen up and deal with bitter truths than pander to populist actions that create a vicious cycle of seeming entitlement and unnecessary comparisons of unrelated incidents and events.
If the hajj committee will have to deal with a handful of pilgrims and deliver a decent process with $1 profit, it makes sense than ferry 1000 people – partly with state funds, keep them in near squalid conditions and come back to declare losses that government pays or is it – covers up, with more state funds.
Me, I have said my mind sha, the sooner the state sits up the better for us all. It is unacceptable what currently pertains. Whiles at it, can government hand this hajj thing to a private body with targets rather than party loyalists? We’d be better served!
Monday 17th September, 2018 = 7th Muharram, 1440.
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