Chairman Of Commission VIII Of The House Of Representatives Approves The Proposal For The Establishment Of The Ministry Of Hajj

Medina, Saudi Arabia/ILLUSTRATION OF UNSPLASH/Ryan Pradipta Putra

JAKARTA - Chairman of Commission VIII of the House of Representatives, Ashabul Kahfi, has agreed with the proposal regarding the formation of the Ministry of Hajj so that the hajj issue does not become a matter taken care of by the Ministry of Religion.

"In principle, I strongly agree that the management of the pilgrimage will become a political policy directly under the President. So far, hajj has only been one directorate of a ministry," said Ashabul Kahfi in a statement quoted by ANTARA, Thursday, June 6.

The establishment of the Ministry of Hajj is a realm of political policy. In today's context, he continued, there has been a dualism in the management of Hajj, namely between the Ministry of Religion and the Hajj Financial Management Agency (BPKH).

"In the aspect of the policy, the implementation of the pilgrimage is the domain of the Ministry of Religion, but in the aspect of Hajj financial management there are other institutions, namely BPKH," he said.

Thus, he considered that a separate ministry needed to overcome this. The Ministry of Hajj can be the only agency that manages everything related to the implementation of the hajj.

He conveyed this in response to a proposal from the Chairman of the Budget Agency (Banggar) of the DPR Said Abdullah in a working meeting with the Coordinating Ministry for Political, Legal and Security Affairs, the Coordinating Ministry for Human Development and Culture, and the Coordinating Ministry for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries in the complex, Wednesday, June 5.

Said said ideally the Ministry of Hajj was independent from the Ministry of Religion.

"Indeed, ideally the Ministry of Religion itself, the Ministry of Hajj itself, but because I am not the winner, I do not dare sir," he said.

Despite approving the proposal to form the Ministry of Hajj, Ashabul Kahfi said this must be studied comprehensively in various aspects.

He even sees that the easier thing for the government to do is to change the Hajj Financial Management Agency (BPKH) to become the Ministry of Hajj.

"The easiest thing is to change the institution in the form of the Hajj Financial Management Agency into a Ministry of Hajj," he said.