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House to carry out legislative diplomacy to push for higher haj quota
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A group of pilgrims from Surabaya and Magetan in East Java board a Saudi Arabian Airlines plane to Madinah in Saudi Arabia from Juanda International Airport in Surabaya. ( JP/ Wahyoe Boedhiwardhana)
T
he House of Representatives will carry out legislative diplomacy with the Saudi Arabian legislative body, the Shura Council, to seek an additional haj quota for 2017, House Speaker Ade Komarudin says.
Following his official visit to Saudi Arabia, Ade said while the 2016 haj went better than last year, the government should maximize efforts to secure a higher haj quota to better accommodate Indonesia, the largest sender of haj pilgrims to Saudi Arabia.
"I will organize an official visit [to Saudi Arabia] in December to discuss improving the haj next year, including [lobbying] about the haj quota and accommodation," Ade said on Monday.
He went on to say that Indonesia should intensify lobbying to secure unused haj seats from neighboring countries, so that Indonesians waiting to go on the haj would not be tempted to falsify documents to use the unused haj seats allocated to other countries.
Meanwhile, Religious Affairs Minister Lukman Hakim Saifuddin said the government expected that the 2017 haj quota for Indonesia to go back to 211,000 seats, since the renovation and expansion of al-Haram Grand Mosque in Mecca was complete.
Since 2013, the Saudi Arabian government has only allocated Indonesia with 168,800 haj seats on account of construction at the mosque. (dmr)
