KUALA LUMPUR: Saudi Arabia's five per cent Value Added Tax (VAT) has led to Tabung Haji (TH) having increased from RM300 million to RM400 million its subsidy for haj pilgrimage this year.
However, first-time Haj pilgrims still only need to pay RM9,980 in haj cost following Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak's directive that TH should not increase the cost of performing haj this year.
Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk Dr Asyraf Wajdi Dusuki said the Prime Minister was concerned with the rising cost of haj from the implementation of VAT and wished to prevent Malaysian haj pilgrims from being burdened with it.
He noted that the implementation of VAT beginning this year does not fundamentally bring direct impact to Malaysian haj pilgrims.
"The cost of performing haj for 2018 on the whole increased to RM22,450 compared to RM19,550 last year.
"The effect from VAT has been taken into account into the cost of haj. The calculation of VAT involves RM733 per pilgrim and includes sleeping accommodation, food and services at Saudi Arabia, leading to TH subsidy to increase from RM300 million to RM400 million," he said.
He was answering an oral question from Datuk Raime Unggi (BN-Tenom) in Dewan Rakyat today, in regards to the government's strategy in handling this year's haj cost following Saudi Arabia's implementation of VAT.
Asyraf Wajdi said that the waiting period to perform haj had increased to 106 years due to increasing numbers of Malaysians registering to perform Haj annually.
"Haj registration as at Feb 28 is 2.9 million people. In February alone, new haj registration was 39,042 people and the total number of registrations this year as at February has reached 78,991 people.
"This made the waiting period to perform haj 106 years," he said in answering a supplementary question from Raime.
He said the Smart Haj system whish was to be implemented this year was estimated to cut down on immigration procedure for Malaysian pilgrims entering Saudi Arabia from two hours to 10 minutes.
"In 2017, TH was involved in the pioneering Smart Haj system which speeds up the preflight immigration process at Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA)," he said.
Mohd Anwar Patho Rohman, Meor Riduwan Meor Ahmad, Hidir Reduan, Luqman Arif Abdul Karim and Nor Ain Mohamed Radhi