The minister of Haj has declared to a local newspaper that his ministry had issued 160,000 Umrah visas since the beginning of the season. “At least 40,000 Umrah pilgrims have already arrived,” Bandar Al-Hajar said.
Concerning the complaint made against his ministry by the Pilgrims-Guides Foundation of South Asia regarding the resolution of its former board of directors, he said: “The ministry respects the judiciary, and any judgment rendered by the judicial authorities will be respected and implemented by the ministry.”
Al-Hajar pointed out during the closing ceremony of the pilgrimage season of last year on Thursday evening, which he sponsored, that the ministry had begun implementing its plans for the new Umrah season. He also said the ministry had all its resources in order to serve the Umrah pilgrims, with the anticipated flow of pilgrims estimated at 400,000 a month. The number is expected to double during the holy month of Ramadan to reach a total of 5.5 million Umrah pilgrims this year.
He explained that the ministry, through its Umrah monitoring and surveillance committees, had begun operating its field works through affiliated centers deployed in the central areas of the Holy Mosque and the Prophet’s Mosque.
At the same time, the Haj minister denied the existence of any direction to reduce the number of Umrah pilgrims this year due to the expansion of the mataf, as the field is open to pilgrims wishing to perform Umrah from any country.
In regard to the licensing of new Umrah companies, Hajar said: “There are currently 50 companies operating in the service of Umrah pilgrims, and there is a committee formed from a number of related bodies that is considering licensing for the establishment of new Umrah companies.”
He declared that the Ministry of Haj continued to implement its plans and training programs for all employees, pointing out that the training and implementation of standards were among the conditions of career advancement as well as performance evaluation and excellence in the next stage. He indicated his ministry’s determination to expand alongside with training as well as internal and external scholarships to improve and develop its performance, since the fiscal budget for training and scholarships at the Ministry of Haj had doubled for the past years.
He said the ministry had recently signed an agreement with the Ministry of Telecommunications and IT in this aspect and specifically within the system and the electronic program YOSER to train all Haj Ministry employees in specialized institutes or within the ministry. The training will be counted under the terms of the promotion, noting that 50 employees of the ministry’s staff would benefit from this agreement in the next few days.
Al-Hajar expressed his dissatisfaction with the services provided by his ministry and the level of those services, demanding all employees to make further efforts to provide better services to visitors and pilgrims. He stressed that all the ministry’s staff should be knowledgeable and familiar with everything going on in their ministry, from technical aspects to the ongoing projects.
He pointed out that there would be a special regulation for excellence and honor according to measurable performance evaluation criteria for all employees and staff of his ministry in the coming days. Staff would be honored according to their performance during honoring ceremonies, he said.
