Egypt MPs accused of selling free Haj visas

Claims that some Egyptian lawmakers sold free visas for the Haj in return for large sums of money have triggered anger in the mostly Muslim country and prompted calls for parliamentary investigations.

The purported sale riveted public attention after an owner of a travel firm, organising Haj trips to Saudi Arabia, claimed that he had bought visas from four members of the parliament for 50,000 Egyptian pounds (Dh10,373) per visa.

“I have documents that confirm this incident. I’ll present these documents to the prosecutor-general,” the company’s owner Emad Al Deen Hussain told an Egyptian television station. Hussain said he is also ready to present a copy of the documents to the parliament when it opens a probe into the alleged scam.

High price

Other Haj firms have claimed they bought similar visas for as much as 95,000 Egyptian pounds per visa.

The visas were offered as gifts by the Saudi embassy in Egypt to the parliament that reportedly handed them to its members with the aim of giving them away to people in their constituencies, who cannot afford their fees.

Unconfirmed media reports said that some lawmakers were able to obtain more than two such visas allocated to each of them in the run-up to this year’s Haj season that ended early this month in Saudi Arabia.

Mustafa Bakri, a prominent pro-government lawmaker, said that Hussain had told him he has “complete proof” of the lawmakers’ alleged involvement in selling visas. “In view of the seriousness of this information and its impact on the reputation of the parliament, I request the head of the parliament to open an urgent probe,” Bakri said in a statement. “This is unethical. The whole truth should be disclosed,” said MP Atef Abdul Jawad in an online comment.