Addressing plight of Hajj tour operators

The effort of strengthening the private sector cannot be over-emphasized but is necessary at this time when the Hajji and Umrah Operators team of investors are facing challenges from the regulatory body that should provide ways for them right from Nigeria and in the Holy land during this year’s (2024) Hajj. This therefore is to […]

The effort of strengthening the private sector cannot be over-emphasized but is necessary at this time when the Hajji and Umrah Operators team of investors are facing challenges from the regulatory body that should provide ways for them right from Nigeria and in the Holy land during this year’s (2024) Hajj.

This therefore is to call on the attention of President Bola Tinubu who provided different interventions to this year’s intending pilgrims ranging from foreign exchange issues to providing cash instead of ATM cards to the pilgrims.

But this effort needs to be reiterated through safeguarding the businesses of private operators in the sector who provide employment to thousands of Nigerians and are big contributors to Nigeria’s GDP.

As critical stakeholders in Hajj operations, the government should create an enabling environment for them to operate as they convey a significant part of Nigerians to Hajj and Umrah every year.

This year is not an exception despite the economic crisis in the country but the tour operators are facing hitches in searching for clients due to delay in approval for the payments of funds for their services to Saudi authorities.

Any delay could cause them huge losses hence this failure would endanger one of the sectors of businesses that President Tinubu is trying to protect.

It will also tarnish the image of this sector in the eyes of their business partners from Saudi Arabia which by extension is part of Foreign Direct Investment which Nigeria’s President is hoping to attract more.

 Hajj is highly capital intensive and no matter how much one has in hands may not be enough to arrange for 100 passengers in Saudi Arabia. So, the government used to support us with subsidies for forex but what we are seeing now is different. For instance, last year dollars were given to us at the rate of N460 against N780 to N800 in the black market.

Nobody had a package of N3m last year because of the support we got from the government in the forex window and that gave opportunity to more people to pay and we had more passengers. We have 20,000 allocations for this year’s hajj, but we won’t be able to achieve 13,000 at the end of the day due to lack of support from the government.

Please Mr President, give urgent attention to this matter before it cripples the sector.

 

Adamu Ibrahim wrote from Abuja