There is a mad rush for the payment for this year’s Hajj package.
This is in spite of the efforts of some to politicise the purely faith matter.
Some payments have already transferred the monies collected into the kitty of the Ghana Hajj Board Secretariat.
The payment, which is usually slow when the package is announced, has this time witnessed a contrary picture.
Last Friday, the Secretariat demonstrated a payment app to pilgrims’ agents at the Ghana Hajj Village in Accra.
With the new app, pilgrim agents and prospective pilgrims can pay for their fares and perform related transactions via the platform.
Alhaji Farouk Hamza, Executive Secretary of the Ghana Hajj Board Secretariat demonstrated the various functions of the app to the delight of the pilgrims, some of whom posed questions.
Agents can load monies onto the app and proceed to pay these for their clients.
The Executive Secretary during his engagement with the stakeholders in Kumasi narrated to the various clergies in the Ashanti regional capital how the app would make things easy for both prospective pilgrims and agents.
Speaking during an engagement with one of the stakeholders, he said “the novelty was an inspiration from Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia, a man leading the charge on the digitisation of all aspects of Ghanaian life.”
The Vice President, he recalled, “charged us to explore the possibility of using a related app to make things easy for pilgrims, especially the payment of the fare for the annual pilgrimage, hence the innovation.”
Agents and prospective pilgrims can print out their statements from the app.
Another feature of the app is that it allows for instalmental payment of a minimum of GH¢5,000 into ones accounts.
The app also has a site for Hajj related news items for the consumption of related publics, the Executive Secretary told the agents.
The Board Secretariat can also be contacted through the app regarding queries from both agents and prospective pilgrims, and it has been designed for both android and iPhones.
Commercials have been sent out to enhance the app sensitisation efforts, DAILY GUIDE has learnt.
Fourteen flights are scheduled to convey the 6,000 expected pilgrims to Saudi Arabia, the first eight originating from the Tamale International Airport and the rest Kotoka International Airport.
The first flight from Tamale is expected to take off on June 9, 2023.
The last flight is expected to take off from the Kotoka International Airport on June 21, 2023.
By A.R. Gomda