{UAH} IT'S ALL BUSINESS: Ugandan pilgrims: We were conned
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Ugandan pilgrims: We were conned
- Written by Zurah Nakabugo
Some Muslims who paid but failed to get visas to make the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, claim they were conned of $4,000 (Shs 14.5 million) each by some travel agents.
One of them, Hajjat Hanifah Nakalema, says she is still reeling from the shock of being told at the last minute by her agent that she couldn't travel because the Saudi Arabian embassy in Kampala ran out of visas.
Nakalema, 65, said she got the bad news on August 18, as she dressed up to go to Entebbe International airport.
She said her tour guide for the Mecca trip, Sheikh Swalleh Mubiru, who happens to be the director of World Link Hijja group, returned her passport without a visa.
"We handed over our passports to Sheikh Mubiru to process our visas and take care of us in Mecca. But at the last hour, he returned our passports without visas. He said the embassy ran short of visas, which wasn't true. We were over 10 people from his group who didn't get visas yet we had paid the full amount and booked [flights] in advance to avoid inconveniences," she explained.
Hajj is the fifth pillar of Islam and brings together Muslims from all nationalities. During pilgrimage, they get cleansed of sin and get closer to God, in line with the teachings of Prophet Muhammad that a person who performs a proper Hajj "will return as a newly born baby [free of all sins]."
Interviewed for this story on August 23, Sheikh Mubiru said he wasn't to blame because he is just an agent for Fildausi Tours and Travel, which was responsible for processing visas.
"When we get clients who want to go for pilgrimage, we hand them over to Fildausi Tours and Travel to process visas.
Then Fildausi also hands over the passports to the Uganda Bureau of Hajj Affairs to collect visas from the Saudi Arabian embassy since it's the only group in Uganda, which was licensed to do that work," he said. Mubiru claimed he, too, was shocked to receive only 15 visas out of 20 applications.
SAUDI MISSION SPEAKS
However, the assistant accountant at the Saudi embassy, Abdul Hakim Nsambi, contradicted Mubiru's account, saying the Saudi mission never stopped offering visas to pilgrims.
"There was no passport which was brought here and didn't get a visa. We granted over 3,000 visas to Ugandans this year. Even some visas are still available here," he said.
Nsambi said under a new Saudi Arabian policy, visas for pilgrims are channeled through the Uganda Bureau of Hajj Affairs.
"The policy doesn't allow people to get visas personally from the embassy since they don't want crowds at the embassy, as they used to be before. This is why a group of Muslims interested in taking people to Mecca came up with the Uganda Bureau of Hajj Affairs to collect visas from the embassy on their behalf," Nsambi said.
He said since many Ugandans are still finding trouble using one organization to collect visas from the embassy, the mission is weighing the option of increasing the number of organizations collecting passports for visa processing.
Later, Mubiru apologised to all people from his group who missed visas. He said he will refund their money when he returns from Hajj.
Pilgrims are expected to return after Idi al-Adha on September 1. Muslims in the country have asked the Ugandan government to nudge Saudi Arabia to revise its policy that bars people from collecting visas personally at the embassy.
They say one agency can't collect visas for all Muslims in the country.
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