By: Aneeqa du Plessis

The South African Hajj and Umrah Council (SAHUC) has released the second hajj accreditation list for 2023/1444 AH. According to a statement released last night, the accreditation list starts on the 13th April 2015 and ends on the 11th June 2015. Accreditation must be accepted or deferred by the 17th February at 18h30. Furthermore, the final date to choose an International Air Transport Association (IATA) approved hajj operator will be the 24th Feb at 18h30.

Speaking on VOC’s Breakfast show on Tuesday morning, SAHUC President Shaheen Essop says just over 800 people were accredited in the second list. He further mentioned that Hujaaj have been granted ‘a bit of extra time’ to make a choice regarding their operators.

“The extension until the 24th February is a date we’ve given both the first and second groups and this is as a result of operators coming back to us and saying there aren’t much hajj packages that are available and hoteliers are not forthcoming with pricing and thus we have come to a compromise in this regard,” clarified Essop.

According to Essop, two of the seven operators have yet to release hajj packages.

“We’ve seen some operators put out packages in the last few days but those are single hotel packages. There aren’t any multiple packages with the exception of one or two but we need to see how the release of other packages will affect the market but we hope hujaaj will take it up by then,” said Essop.

On whether a third accreditation list will be released, Essop said it all depends on how many aspiring pilgrims accept or defer their invitation to the holy lands.

“It depends entirely on the take-up, as we saw in the first list there was a 50% dropout and hence a second list was released and now we will have to wait until the 17th February to see how many people will defer and if it is more than 50% a third list will be released. We will continue putting out lists until our quota is filled,” added Essop.

For more information visit SAHUC website: https://registry.sahuc.org.za/accreditation

VOC