Discussing The Hajj Financial Management Bill, The DPR Baleg Proposes BPKH To Be Responsible Directly To The President

JAKARTA - The Legislation Body (Baleg) of the DPR is currently harming the Draft Law (RUU) on Amendments to Law Number 34 of 2014 concerning Hajj Financial Management.

Member of the DPR Baleg, Habib Syarief Muhammad, proposed that the Hajj Financial Management Agency (BPKH) be directly responsible to the President.

Habib Syarief explained that this bill was present in response to several crucial problems that had been identified. One of the central issues is the widening disparity between the costs of organizing the Hajj (BPIH) with the cost of Hajj (Bipih) which must be borne by the congregation.

"Our study shows that there has been a significant increase in BPIH, even reaching 41.3 percent in 2022 compared to 2019. This increase is not linear with the increase in the congregation's paid deposit, which systemically has caused the portion of the value of the benefits used to cover the difference to experience an upward trend, even reaching the highest point of 59 percent in 2022," Habib Syarief told reporters, Wednesday, December 10.

Habib Syarief said, if this is not immediately addressed by an adaptive regulatory framework, it has the potential to erode the people's endowment funds and cause fundamental problems related to the halalness of funding.

"The use of value benefits, which is actually the right of the congregation to wait to pay for the departing congregation without an explicit permit, is a form of serious violation of rights by the state," he said.

According to Habib Syarief, this bill encourages the optimization of Hajj financial governance through the expansion of the reach and breakthrough of more productive investment policies by BPKH. He assessed that the management of hajj funds which reached trillions of rupiah each year must be able to provide optimal and sustainable value of benefits.

The PKB legislator also highlighted the provisions governing the expenditure of Hajj placements or financial investments that must obtain the approval of all supervisory boards. This process, said Habib Syarief, often takes a long time in practice due to differences of views among members of the supervisory board.

"Therefore, this bill proposes provisions regarding the minimum percentage of approval from the supervisory board, for example 50% + 1, to accelerate and streamline investment decision making without ignoring the principles of prudence and accountability," he said.

In the context of risk management, continued Habib Syarief, this bill will strengthen the framework for protecting hajj funds by encouraging the establishment of systematic capital reserves to anticipate losses arising from 'business judgment' as well as various other investment risks, such as credit, market, liquidity, yield returns, operations, strategics, compliance, and law.

"This bill also expands BPKH's authority. Currently, BPKH's authority tends to be limited to the scope of investment placement of hajj funds," he said.

The legislator from the West Java I electoral district is of the view that BPKH must take a significant role in making decisions regarding the amount of acceptance and expenditure of hajj finances. In addition, according to him, this bill will also clarify BPKH's accountability line.

According to him, the BPKH accountability pattern to the President through the current minister is not appropriate, considering that the management of hajj finance by BPKH is a functionally different entity with the implementation of the pilgrimage by the Ministry of Hajj.

"Therefore, BPKH should directly be responsible to the President. This will strengthen the position of BPKH as an independent, professional, and accountable financial management institution, and avoid potential overlapping authority or political bias," concluded Habib Syarief.