The Executive Secretary of the Ghana Hajj Secretariate Alhaji Farouk Hamza responding to questions by journalists during a press briefing by the Ghana Hajj Board at the Hajj Village in Accra, Ghana in the aftermath of the 2024 Hajj and Umrah conference in Jedda, Saudi Arabia has assured the general public of yet another successful Hajj operations by the Secretariate.
Journalists from the various media organizations in Accra present at the press briefing asked a lot of questions pertaining to this year's Hajj and previous operations including the mode of registration, subscription, pilgrims welfare and payments.
Alhaji Farouk Hamza in responding to that, reiterated that the electronic mode of payments and registration through the mobile applications on Android and Apple is still active for subscription for prospective pilgrims. He further indicated that, the electronic payment mode was successful and it has helped with the smooth transaction between the various stakeholders.
There was a question about pilgrims being stranded in Saudi Arabia after the Hajj by one of the journalists and this is how the executive secretary of the Hajj Secretariate responded.
" We carried 3000 pilgrims to Hajj and back and as we speak, we don't have any official report here at the Hajj village or the Hajj Secretariate and if it is before, I still do not have a reference. Then maybe you ( referring to the Journalist) are talking about five years ago because the last one was 2019, so if it is 2019, we went with 6000 pilgrims, we came back and everyone picked their luggage as when the luggage arrives including their Zamzam water ( Holy water)"
He added " If you send 6000 pilgrims to the kingdom of Saudi Arabia for one month and bring them back, meaning that, you brought in excess of 6000 bags. If someone lost a bag, I think it is legitimate for us to investigate and find out why. We can only do that with a report and we don't have such a report, so it is difficult to give credence to what you are saying if indeed it happens then we are sorry about that".
On the issue of Zamzam distribution, Alhaji Farouk Hamza stated that, every pilgrim who went with the Ghana Hajj Board for last year's Hajj, had collected his or her Zamzam and there is enough Zamzam from last year's Hajj stocked at the Hajj Secretariate.
Those who did not come home with Zamzam are those who went without Hajj permits thus with visiting and tourist visas.
As part of the press briefing, this year's Hajj schedule was revealed with the announcement of GHC 75,000 and $ 6,250 as the hajj fare. The Ghana Cedis was the same as last year but a reduction of $ 250 from $ 6,500 to ease the burden of pilgrims as against the performance of the Ghanaian Cedi to the United States Dollar. He therefore, encouraged prospective pilgrims to pay their Hajj fares in time to beat the deadline of visa issuance on May 20, 2024.
The commencement of flights from Tamale international airport is tentatively scheduled on May, 30, 2024 for the Northern Zone and Southern Zone on June 8, 2024 in Accra.
Expected return flights have been scheduled on June 28, 2024.
Tanko Mohammed Rabiu/ Hajjcommunications
