ISLAMABAD: The Ministry of Religious Affairs will not have any objection if the parliament allows the private sector to manage Haj arrangements, Minister Hamid Saeed Kazmi told the Standing Committee of the National Assembly on Religious Affairs on Friday.
The standing committee, headed by Maulana Muhammad Qasim, had summoned Kazmi to probe the Haj scam.
“Parliament is sovereign and can allow private sector to run Haj affairs completely or partially or for limited purposes like hiring building and the ministry will have no objection in this regard,” Kazmi said.
Repeating a statement he had made earlier that this year corruption in the Haj affairs was far less than previous years, the minister admitted he had failed to handle things properly owing to his inexperience in running the affairs of the ministry. He also said the flooding in the country had caused a delay in hiring buildings for the pilgrims.
The minister said Pakistan’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia was interested in becoming the chairman of the committee for hiring the buildings, adding that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs should be asked to question Islamabad’s envoy in Riyadh.
When Bilal Yasin, a member of the committee, pointed out that Latif Khosa had asked for Rs 5.5 million to contest the Haj scam case on behalf of the ministry, the committee barred the ministry from hiring Khosa and ordered it to let the attorney general (AG) defend. The committee also asked how was it possible that former Haj DG Rao Shakeel alone was responsible for the embezzlements in the arrangement while all others were innocent. It directed the FIA to investigate all the people involved in hiring buildings for the pilgrims.