Permit me, Your Excellency to extend my sincere thanks and appreciation to Her Excellency the 1st Lady, Mrs. Sia Koroma for facilitating my Hajj trip in 2010 for which I am very grateful.
Your Excellency Sir, you have left so many legacies on this Hajj issue and I am worried of what will happen in future Hajj. I am of the strongest conviction that the only help you can render us (Muslims) is to set up a National Hajj Commission through the Ministry of Social Welfare Gender and Children Affairs which is our parent Ministry led by Dr. Sylvia O. Blyden.
Your Excellency Sir, the National Hajj commission like other commissions will oversee the Issue of Hajj in the country so that Hajj will not be seen as Monthly event but a yearly event like several other countries including Nigeria, Gambia, India, to name but a few.
The Hajj Commission will provide efficient and effective services to pilgrims and will ensure that we have so many people pay the stipulated amount rather than waiting to buy scholarship as mechanism will be put in place for installment payment which will give good advantage to all Sierra Leoneans especially those abroad to pay for their loved ones.
The Hajj Commission will ensure that there is monitoring and evaluation as they will spend more time looking at the successes and failures and try to maintain on the success whilst improving on the weaknesses.
The skeletal staff will ensure a database of all Hajj pilgrims with statistics that will give opportunity to poor and needy Sierra Leoneans to perform Hajj rather than getting people repeatedly enjoying the scholarship.
The Hajj Commission will ensure that there is rotation on the committee members who will be known as Board Members, and there will be a system in place to ensure that people do not have to leave their families in the provinces for days as there will be regional offices.
The Hajj Commission will serve as a link between Government and the intending Hajj Pilgrims to ensure that scholarships received are fairly distributed.
I hope and pray you will consider us to have our own commission.
Your’s Faithfully
Alhaji Wusha-Conteh M.