Hajj 2018: Bauchi intending pilgrims advised to meet deadline for payment

AS preparations for the 2018 Hajj picks up, the Executive Secretary of the Bauchi State Muslim Pilgrims Welfare Board, Abdullahi Magaji Hardawa has charged this year’s intending pilgrims from the State to hasten and pay up their hajj fares before the 22nd of June 2018 to enable them to be part of the exercise.

While speaking with newsmen Monday in his office on the preparations for the exercise, Magaji Hardawa also urged those who made part payments to complete them before the deadline.

According to him, this year’s intending pilgrims were to pay the sum of  N1,476,328.91 million as hajj fare as against last year’s N1.5 Million.

He noted that last year the State Governor,  Mohammed Abdullahi Abubakar paid the sum of N85,000 subsidy in the hajj fares of all the 3,000 pilgrims from the State disclosing that the Saudi Arabian authorities had refunded monies for services not rendered to the pilgrims in the previous years.

Magaji Hardawa revealed that 443 people who performed the holy pilgrimage in 2016 and 57 others who participated in the exercise in 2017 were yet to show up at the board to claim their monies returned by the Saudi Arabian government.

The Executive Secretary, however, asked the owners to collect the funds before the end of the month of June otherwise they would be taken back to the National Hajj Commission in Abuja as unclaimed.

He then advised that “Those who collected forms but are yet to submit same should do that in good time so that necessary formalities would be done to enable them to partake in this year’s Hajj operation”.