Date: 2018-03-19

The National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON), the National Assembly and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) as well as the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) is to collaborate to work out a Savings Scheme for Nigerian intending pilgrims to Saudi Arabia to ease the payment of their fares to perform yearly pilgrimages to Saudi Arabia.

The National Commissioner , NAHCON in charge of Policy , Personnel, Management and Finance, Alhaji Yusuf Adebayo disclosed this in Ilorin , the Kwara State capital while featuring on a Radio Kwara personality interview programme, "Playing Host".

According to him , such arrangement where intending pilgrims would save into the scheme would drastically reduce the stress pilgrims faced in paying huge amount to perform the hajj exercise stressing that immediately the commission is licensed to commence the sayings as done in countries like Malaysia, the scheme would be put into operations with reliable trustees .

Alhaji Adebayo announced that for this years pilgrimage , ninety six thousand slots had been allocated to Nigeria by the Saudi Authorities while out of this figure, seventy six thousand would be distributed to all the thirty six states of the federation including the Federal capital Territory , Abuja, and the Armed Forces while the remaining twenty thousand would be given to licensed tour operators across the country.

The NAHCON boss explained that ninety five percent of hajj fare are always determined by the exchange rate of the dollar particularly in terms of accommodation and feeding in all the cities in the Holy Land .

According to him , the commission is working towards maintaining last year's fare for this year's exercise though , he said , the Saudi Authorities has included Value Added Tax on the fare and warned against late payment .

Alhaji Adebayo implored all intending pilgrims to complete their payment for 2018 hajj before the commencement of Ramadan fast as May this year is the deadline for payment while all arrangements in terms of accommodation , transportation , medical facilities and serving of local food contents have been arranged for all the pilgrims .

He announced that the commission had so far refunded over four hundred and eighty million Naira to various State pilgrims Welfare boards to last year's pilgrims from their states for services not well provided by the Service providers adding that the refund is an ongoing exercise .

The Commissioner disclosed that the airlines to be used for the airlifting of intending pilgrims are been screened but said the airports made used of last year such as those of Ilorin , ABUJA, Kaduna, Kano , Jigawa, Bauchi , Enugu and Port Harcourt would still be used this year as departure centers and said the various airports have been directed to improve their facilities for a smooth hajj operations.

Alhaji Adebayo warned that any state that has a case of delivery during the hajj exercise would be sanctioned and the seat allocated to such state would be reduced by ten percent adding that with the new E-Track policy of the Saudi Authorities , those above the age of seventy would not be allowed to perform hajj and a second timer would be made to pay additional premium of two thousand Saudi Riyals .