Hajj dream on hold
Almost every Muslim or a middle-class Pakistani child dreams of one day being able to afford to send their parents on pilgrimage, either Umrah or Hajj.
Due to the cost associated with this trip, many can’t afford it, but one 27-year-old did everything he could to make it happen. Usman Shafqat worked two jobs for three years thinking it would help him save enough money to send his parents to Hajj, but it was only just the beginning of his struggles. Such is the case for at least 1,300 others who’ve been caught wondering whether they can make the pilgrimage or not, due to a glitch in the system.
Hajj was forbidden for foreign nationals for two years in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic and recently resume after two years when Saudi Arabia allowed people from other parts of the world to come perform Hajj. However, after two years of being put on hold, registration and other arrangements for the pilgrimage have resumed in a haphazard way, leaving people in the lurch. “The flawed system has made it a huge stressful procedure for us,” Shafqat said.
Saudi Arabia confirmed the quote for this year’s Hajj in March, giving the ministry little time to make arrangements. When the government received the quota, they quickly started booking accommodations, catering, and travel arrangements, while bringing on 14 banks to process registration and payments.
Pakistan received a total of 63,604 applications through online and selected banks, out of which 40% were allocated for the government Hajj scheme from the 81,132-person quota that Pakistan has for Hajj in 2022. The Ministry of Religious Affairs (MoRA) is responsible for making arrangements to make Hajj a smooth and easy process for people.
The registration for this year's Hajj took place this year from May 1 until May 13 and applicants were asked to apply through banks with Rs. 50,000. Successful candidates can later submit the total amount and unsuccessful candidates can take their money back later.
As soon as the balloting was done on the 32,453 seats which were set to perform Hajj in 2022 from the government facility, successful applicants asked to submit the rest of the required amount by the 26th and 27th of May. Muhammad Umar, spokesperson of the Ministry of Religious Affairs, said banks were told to scrutinize the data on Saturday.
In the afternoon on Saturday, MoRA learned that money from around 2,400 applicants wasn’t received, so the system informed another 2,400 applications that they were on the waiting list. They were told to submit the required about of money to the banks since time was short and the first flight was scheduled to leave on June 1, Umar said.
A glitch in the system
As soon as the 2,400 people on the waiting list submitted the required amount of money (between Rs. 749,967 and Rs. 800,387 depending on the city and if they included Qurbani in their Hajj package), the ministry started to receive complaints from banks that some amounts were not punched in by Friday 27.
They said that due to a glitch in the system, they couldn’t update the system, despite receiving the full amount and issuing applicants receipts saying they had received the money.
There were more than 1,300 of these cases. “As soon as the cases started to appear from banks, people also started to contact us as their status was showing unsuccessful payments while they had submitted the complete amount,” Umar said.
Most applicants didn’t know their status wasn’t updated until the flight schedule was released. When they checked the schedule, they realized their preparation for the trip was useless since MoRA never received their money. They were declared unable to participate in this year’s Hajj despite paying the full amount on time.
Disappointed applicants
Shafqat said his mother has high blood pressure and needed to go to the hospital after the news that she wouldn’t be able to go to Hajj this year. “The whole day I was only worried for if anything might happen to her from the stress she has taken on herself,” he said. “My mother has dreamt of performing Hajj with my father since I don’t even remember when and I wanted to make this dream of her come true.”
He said no one at the banks or MoRA is giving them any clarity about the status of their trip and keep giving them new dates every time they approach them. Shafqat’s mother started buying clothes and other items for her travel when she heard she had been successful in the balloting; She even started packing her bags. “I still keep telling her every day that her schedule will be updated soon, Shafqat said. “It is a lot for our family to bear.”
“We have been calling and sending out e-mails to banks presidents, MoRA, complaints on the PM portal, and even calling Hajj information numbers but we are just told to wait one more day,” said Aftab Jabbar Memon, who has deposited his full amount and was declared unsuccessful.
Applicants have formed groups to unite and demand action, holding protests at the ministry’s office. After a week of such activities, bank, and MoRA officials held meetings to try to resolve the issue. Off the bat, they declared the 1,300 applications successful in the system to attempt to calm them down. However, no lasting solution to the problem has yet to be found.
“It has been almost 20 days and daily we keep hearing that we will get our flight schedule soon,” said Memon, another applicant who was supposed to go to Hajj along with his wife. “We still don’t know whether we can make it or not.”
Demanding answers
Memon has been active in the groups that have been demanding answers. He has received calls from the bank saying that he should not email the bank’s president and asking him not to bother them, even though the bank was at fault; It never shared the portal receipt with him, just handed him a receipt stating that it had received his money. Despite this, he was later declared unsuccessful by the ministry.
According to an official, there are two possible solutions to the issue. The first is for the ministry to write a letter to the Saudi Government and ask them to allow a ‘Hardship quota’ for Pakistan. However, that quota would still not be enough to account for the number of people affected by the system error. The second option is to take some spots from the private Hajj quota, with is unlikely to work. The last option is to send more than 1,300 applicants via private Hajj, forcing the governments or the banks found responsible for the error to pay the difference.
The cost for the cheapest private Hajj in Pakistan is somewhere between Rs. 1.2 million and Rs. 1.3 million. When the issue was brough up to the Ministry by banks on May 30, a committee was created to investigate the matter to help people find a solution. The committee found that banks were guilty and asked them to bear the expense of the difference it would cost between government and private Hajj charges.
There were 14 banks involved in the Hajj process and cases were reported from nine of them. Since applicants weren’t receiving any clarity about their situations, but continually being told to wait, they took the matter to court so that the judiciary can make a final decision.
On Tuesday, the Lahore High Court finalized a hearing for this case and ordered the ministry to release the schedule for flights by June 20 at any cost, since the last flight that Saudi Arabia will entertain from the Pakistan Government Hajj will be June 30.
The stakes of the decision are high because the sentiments connected to the Hajj experience are not just religious but also emotional. Some people spend their life savings to be able to go on this pilgrimage. When they are told they can’t go, it feels for some like their life is crashing down.
Aisha Khan and her husband also applied this year with their parents after a failed balloting process in 2018. They had a two-month-old son the next year and then Hajj was suspended for two years because of Covid-19. This year, she said the price has skyrocketed, which has made it extremely difficult to accrue resources for the trip, only to have it come to nothing. “Only a middle-class household can understand how difficult it is to gather so much money and then still suffer by the hands of these officials,” Khan said.
Banks at fault
Banks were found to be at fault for not posting receipts on the ministry’s portal despite collecting money from applicants. Umar said that officials on the team sat with the banks’ IT departments and audited transactions, even staying overnight and on weekends to resolve the matter. Still, he said the ministry has little time to accommodate everyone and is trying to issue a flight schedule as early as possible.
He said the ministry now has extra work due to the mistake of banks, which includes adding extra flights. The ministry said it is striving to solve the issue soon. Banks have been directed to accommodate applicants by paying the difference between government and private Hajj schemes. He hoped that the banks would comply, and the issue would be resolved soon. “The final decision has yet to be made about how banks will compensate,” Umar said.
Hajj this year is expected to fall on July 10. Given the situation, it is unclear whether hopeful applicants can make it this year or not. “As we usually say and believe if Allah has written in our destiny to come to his house this year then nothing can stop us but if Allah has written this for us then whatsoever, we cannot make it this year,” said Sajid Rasheed, another applicant. “Who knows if we will be alive next year or the prices will go higher and we can’t afford it then,” told Sajid Rasheed.
A few applicants have received their portal receipts of payment and have gotten their payment details corrected. Some have even received flight details, but they still feel uncertain.
“In the worst-case scenario if we cannot make it happen for the 1,300 people and can’t avail Hajj this year then obviously [the] government will give them some relief in next year's Hajj,” Umar said. He said that those people may be given the opportunity to go without balloting or be given other treatment to make the process easier. “But most probably they all will go this year as the ministry is working day and night to resolve this issue at the earliest.”
One official at the ministry said errors could have come from insufficient training since every year bank staff are trained on how to get applicants registered, how to collect their monty and punch them in the portal with each applicant ID. They also learn about the necessary aspects to be considered after receiving payments and what boxes should be clicked as mandatory if applicants are applying with or without Qurbani.
“Many of the seniors who were efficient in this process [must] have retired in this time and a new lot has taken over, which is why they might have not been that well-trained,” the official said. He said banks were given orientation and training before the process started. “Such mistakes do happen every year but at that time, we used to have time to resolve it. Now, we are like on a ticking bomb where the whole Hajj was to be arranged in 3 months.”
Umar said the ministry will take action against banks that caused this issue and will take into consideration suggestions about how to prevent this in the future. One of the most common suggestions, he said, is to digitize the payment system so that applicants can pay through their mobile banking systems. “That way the human error will be less and burden from banks will be lessened as well,” he said. He added that it’s too early to decide anything until this year’s Hajj operations are completed.
If the ministry fails to provide the flight schedule by June 20, applicants have decided to protest in front of the MoRA Islamabad office and in front of other press clubs in different cities on June 21.
Some people remain hopeful. “I am still waiting positively that I will get my schedule soon and can perform Hajj this year,” Memon said.