The hearing attendees have recommended the Foundation for the Care of Martyrs and Wounded Families- in charge of the management and implementation of the Pilgrimage donation- to publish the donation-related conditions and criteria and to update the martyrs families on all the developments related to such a donation, and to develop a mechanism to receive complaints and respond to them in full integrity and transparency. The participants emphasized that the continued absence of information would result in a misleading and suspicion in the donation management and implementation process. They also called for declaring the Gaza share of the donation and to announce the registration of names, publish the names of beneficiaries in local newspapers as well as the Foundation’s website. These recommendations were made at a hearing held by Coalition for Integrity and Accountability - AMAN - on the criteria for selecting the names of beneficiaries from the honoring donation allocated to the families of martyrs.
The hearing, which was opened and moderated by the Director of AMAN’s Regional Office in the Gaza Strip, Mr. Wael Balousheh, who stressed the importance of AMAN’s role in examining the environment of integrity, transparency and accountability in the management of public services, especially in light of the synchronization of the date of registering the beneficiary martyrs families for pilgrimage donation of which the Foundation for Care Martyrs and Wounded Families did not declare the Gaza share although the preparation for registration usually begins on 15 of Ramadan each year, while the lists of names are sorted on 20 of Ramadan, but this year it did not happen.
AMAN Coalition has received several grievances and complaints from citizens alleging suspicions of corruption, based on nepotism and favoritism in managing and awarding the donation to the beneficiaries. The also claimed that the donation was used by other who are not of martyrs and wounded families in order to travel under the pretext that they are either technicians or administrators.
The meeting was attended by the Director General of the Foundation for Care of Martyrs and Wounded Families, Mr. Mohammad An-Nahhal, and a number of martyrs' families, representatives of community organizations related to martyrs and wounded rights as well as representatives of some civil society and media organizations.
The Coordinator of Advocacy and Social Accountability at AMAN Coalition, Marwa Abu Odeh, has presented the most important information and facts collected by the Coalition on the donation management. She explained the disparity in the share of martyrs’ families over the past years, as the pilgrimage donation in 2009 has reached 2,000 pilgrims, divided equally between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. However, five hundred (500) seats were allocated to the Gaza Strip in 2017 while one thousand and five hundred (1500) were allocated to the West Bank.
The hearing raised key questions addressed to Mr. Mohammad An-Nahhal, who in turn explained the Foundation’s work mechanism in following up the pilgrimage donation file. He also pointed to the historical development of the donation of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques in terms of numbers, distribution mechanism among governorates and the selection criteria of the beneficiaries. He justified this mechanism stating that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has allocated the donation to Al-Aqsa Intifada Martyrs’ families only, and that the Foundation is allocating the donation based on chronological order and the date of martyrdom, so that the names of the martyrs of the years following the Al-Aqsa Intifada are included. He asserted that all the martyrs’ families know the due dates they benefit from the donation as they are updated on the conditions and criteria when they refer to the Foundation.
An-Nahhal explained the applied conditions and criteria in the selection of beneficiaries, which is allocating two seats for the family of the martyr, taking into account the criteria of age and health, to ensure that martyrs’ families who are over sixty years can benefit from the donation.
An-Nahhal said that ten buses are allocated each year and the Foundation adds a number of administrators to each bus. He justified the repetition of the administrators as standing to reason since the assigned person to supervise the progress and instructions of the donation is constant at the Foundation, in addition to assigning two clergies by the Ministry of Endowment for each bus. An-Nahhal revealed that the Foundation adds some exceptions through a list of 30 to 50 beneficiary names, who are determined by the Foundation based on age and health criteria and the priority is given to patients or elderly people of Martyrs’ families.
Al-Nahhal said that the share of Gaza has not yet been determined. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has not informed the Palestinian Embassy of the approval of the donation so far. Therefore the Foundation for Care of Martyrs and Wounded Families has not yet started the preparation procedures of the donation.
On the other hand, some of the martyrs’ families, who attended the hearing, asked about the nature of the exceptions An-Nahhal mentioned. They suspect that these exceptions can raise suspicions and they drew the attention of the officials that these exceptions may include persons from outside the martyrs’ families. They stressed that it should be better if such exceptions are allocated to the families of martyrs of recent years as the martyrs of the 2014 war, who are waiting for their turn since more than six years, and some of them may lose this right because of decease.
In the midst of the blackout on donation conditions and the receipt of complaints, An- Nahhal stressed that the Foundation for Care of Martyrs and Wounded Families is keen to convey the information to citizens and respond to their inquiries when they directly visit the Foundation. He described the complaint box which was used by the Foundation as “useless” because most of the complaints received are general and ambiguous. He also declared that the Foundation is currently addressing the complaints of citizens through the legal advisor directly, only through direct visits by citizens.
The participants in the meeting have raised the most important recommendations that can be summarized by citizens’ access to information, which ensures integrity and transparency in the implementation of the procedures and refutes any suspicions that may occur. The stakeholders also recommended the Foundation to pay more efforts for increasing the donation shares for martyrs’ families in Gaza, distribute the donation in a way that allows one person from each martyr’s family to benefit, which increases the chances of families to pilgrimage, in addition to adopting a clear mechanism to address the citizens’ complaints.
