What’s the point of having unqualified hajj assistants?

It is astonishing how corrupt practices continue to mar just about any government operation. As a report by this daily has revealed, of the 218 officials that the religious affairs ministry is sending to Saudi Arabia to assist Bangladeshi medical and technical teams during this year's hajj, at least 200 have neither any technical training nor a background in medicine. Instead, you have cooks, cleaners, chauffeurs, bodyguards, staff connected with high-up officials, office assistants, and administrative officers. Clearly, they are unqualified to perform the listed roles of their respective teams: to provide assistance at health clinics, ensure prompt services for patients, assist the hajj technical team, and find missing pilgrims.

Unfortunately, government programmes for hajj have been repeatedly subjected to such corruption and favouritism in the past. For instance, under the government's subsidised hajj programme last year, more than half of the 254 pilgrims were found to be associated with the ruling party. How fair is it to spend a huge chunk of public money for the hajj of solvent, politically connected people? This year, Biman is reportedly set to spend crores to send 100 of its officials to Saudi Arabia in the name of assisting pilgrims, as it did before too. Again, we cannot help but ask: is such a delegation at all necessary when Biman already has several fully-fledged offices in Saudi Arabia for this job?

In light of the latest report, it is clear that the selection of hajj delegates was not done based on their capability to serve pilgrims. It is more than likely that they bought or powered their way into the teams, and it is the ordinary pilgrims and taxpaying citizens who will have to bear the cost of their transgressions and that of ministry high-ups. This is totally unacceptable. We urge the government to hold to account those overseeing hajj operations for their mismanagement and irregularities. It must properly investigate all such cases of corrupt selection and recruitment as well as the role of ministry officials behind it.