ACC: No corruption in issuance of Hajj quotas

Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has concluded that no act of corruption took place in issuance of Hajj pilgrimage quotas to companies this year.

ACC released the summary of its findings following its investigation into issuance of Hajj quotas this Thursday.

The commission concluded that it found no evidence of corruption or irregularity in the allocation of points to companies who applied for Hajj quotas.

“Due to insufficient evidence to prove beyond reasonable doubt that an act of corruption as stated in Act 2/2000 (Anti-Corruption Act) took place, this case has been established as free of corruption and closed as per Article 25 (a) (ii) of Act 13/2008 (Anti-Corruption Commission Act).

The case was filed with the commission by Sisilfaru Hajj & Umrah Group, which has also filed a civil lawsuit over the issue.

18 companies had sent proposals for Hajj quotas.

ACC investigators found that the staff at Islamic Ministry had accepted proposals which were missing some of the relevant documents as required under Article 6 of Regulations for Carriers of Hajj Pilgrims, but that the evaluation committee instructed the staff to re-check for documents when the proposals were sent to the committee.

The investigators found the document declaring the responsibilities of the head and deputy head was missing from the proposals of two companies.

“These two proposals, though it should have been rejected by the evaluation committee, were not,” said the ACC in its summary report.

The commission did not name the two companies, and concluded that the oversight had been due to lack of attention to Article 7 and 8 of Regulations for Carriers of Hajj Pilgrims.

RECOMMENTATIONS BY ACC

• The specifics of regulations must be followed to the letter when accepting future proposals
• Proposals must be accepted with all the required documents
• No proposal should be accepted before separately checking for every document stated in the regulation and ensuring all documents are there
• The staff who checks for the documents must sign and date stamp the checklist, and the checklist must be properly managed in order to remedy lack of accountability due to lack of signature.
• Evaluation committee must include details when assigning points