JEDDAH, 28 July 2007 — Several domestic Haj organizing companies in the Kingdom are complaining that the ministries of Haj and Commerce have put them in a Catch-22 situation: where one ministry is asking for a license from the other ministry, and vice versa, according to a report in Al-Eqtisadiah newspaper, a sister publication of Arab News.

The procedure for the renewal of a license to serve as a domestic Haj organizing company involves the company obtaining two documents. One is a commercial registration from the Commerce Ministry in Makkah to practice the pilgrims’ service and the other is a separate license from the local Haj Ministry branch.

The problem faced by the applicant companies is that they are asked to get the commercial registration before they can apply for the license from the Haj Ministry’s branch while the Commerce Ministry’s branch insists that they should bring the license from the Haj Ministry if they are to be given a registration.

The applicants also complain that the commerce office has refused to issue them new commercial registration even if their old licenses are valid for a few months more.

Idris Kurdi, director of the Commerce Ministry’s Makkah branch, said that several applications have been rejected because his office renews registration to those applicants whose licenses are still valid for more than one year.

A source at the Haj Ministry’s branch explains that he has demanded the applicants renew their commercial registrations because the Haj license is issued for a period of five years. If the applicant’s old commercial registration is not valid, his office has demanded they get the registration to be renewed first and then issue the license, the source said.

The Haj organizers are now demanding that the two ministries work in coordination and do not demand them to fulfill impossible conditions. Either one of the departments should be willing to do its part without waiting the other department to do its part. Unless they settle the matter without any delay it will create a lot of confusion for the domestic pilgrims, the applicants warn.

According to the statutes of the domestic pilgrimage adopted by the Haj Ministry for implementation in the upcoming Haj season, the company or individual establishment intending to organize domestic Haj pilgrims should have a legal entity based on a commercial registration or company regulations.

Its capital should be a minimum of SR500,000 in the case of a company and SR300,000 if it is an individual establishment. It should not have been subjected to the penal cancelation of its license in past. It should also have an electronic linking facility with the ministry to provide it with the necessary data on the pilgrims.

The delay in issuing licenses to the domestic Haj establishments would lead to confusion in the matter of domestic pilgrims. It is because the Kingdom’s regulations stipulate that a domestic pilgrim, be it a national or expatriate, should undertake the Haj pilgrimage only through a licensed Haj organizing establishment.