Fajarasia.co – Coordinating Minister for Human Development and Culture (Menko PMK) Muhadjir Effendy revealed that the government has often barged every time the pilgrimage was held. This is because they have to subsidize the cost of hajj.
Coordinating Minister Muhadjir explained that the government has always subsidized almost half the cost of the pilgrimage.
“The cost of the hajj is actually above Rp. 70 million, even Rp. 80 million,” said Muhadjir to reporters, Monday (23/5/2022).
“So, actually the public should be given an understanding that the government always subsidizes the cost of hajj,” he added.
Regarding this, Muhadjir said that currently the Hajj funds are no longer managed by the Ministry of Religion (Kemenag). Hajj funds are now managed by the Hajj Financial Management Agency (BPKH).
Therefore, when subsidies are not sufficient, BPKH must find other sources of funds for subsidies for Hajj financing from the government.
“BPKH is trying to cover it through investment, it’s invested but it’s not enough. It hasn’t been able to cover the shortfall in hajj costs,” he said.
On the other hand, every year actually the cost of hajj increases, besides the government has to bear the burden of inflation from paying hajj costs.
The former Chancellor of the University of Muhammadiyah Malang (UMM) gave an example of the cost of the pilgrimage that was paid five years ago with today, of course, the economy is different. Because the funds paid must be affected by inflation.
“Inflation is not calculated with the cost of the pilgrimage which is not periodically increased without an increase. As a result, the government bears the burden of inflation,” he said.
Therefore, Muhadjir asserted, it is not true if there is information about the cost of hajj funds being used by the central government for the construction of a number of infrastructures. As a result, in order to reduce the amount of subsidies, he had time to make a proposal to President Joko Widodo, to discuss further evaluating the cost of hajj funds every year.
“It’s not true that there is an issue of hajj money being used to build infrastructure, it doesn’t exist. In fact, we’ve been sticking it all along,” he said.*
