Coalition MKs block state comptroller investigation into budget ‘farce’
Knesset State Audit Committee discusses finance ministry’s handling of budget process, resignation of former budget chief amid allegations of political interference
Coalition MKs on Monday voted down an effort by a Knesset committee to have the state comptroller review the 2021 budget preparation process amid allegations the state budget was being subverted for political purposes.
Opposition MK Ofer Shelah convened the State Audit Committee in the wake of a Knesset vote to delay finalizing the 2020 budget and the recent dramatic resignation of the finance ministry’s top professional official.
Last month the Knesset accepted a compromise to postpone the deadline to pass the budget, delaying the possibility that Israelis will go to the polls for the fourth time since April 2019.
The budget debate was at the heart of a dispute between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and coalition partner Defense Minister Benny Gantz of Blue and White.
At the heart of the coalition crisis was whether the government should pass a budget that includes 2021, as stipulated in the coalition agreement and backed by Gantz, or a budget that only covers the rest of 2020, as Likud has insisted due to the uncertainty caused by the pandemic.
Blue and White has accused Netanyahu of deliberately attempting to violate the coalition agreement with his sudden demand for a one-year budget in order to leave himself a future window during next year’s budget talks to dissolve the government. This would let him avoid having to hand over the prime minister post to Gantz in November 2021, as the coalition deal stipulates.
Top economists say passing a budget that encompasses both 2020 and 2021 makes the most sense, as there would be little point for a 2020 budget just a few months before the year’s end. Netanyahu says uncertainty due to the pandemic makes it impossible to plan that far ahead.
The lack of a budget has meant that the government is operating according to the 2019 budget, limited to spending 1/12 of last year’s funds every month.
Shelah, of Yesh Atid, called the current situation “one of the most serious farces in the process of preparing a state budget,” noting that Israel was “in the midst of a huge economic crisis , with hundreds of thousands of unemployed across the nation.”
Shelah charged the “roof is coming down on the finance ministry… [who are] coming close to the embezzlement of public funds,” highlighting the dramatic departure of the head of the budget department Shaul Meridor, who resigned last week in protest of the government’s recent economic policies and after months of infighting with Finance Minister Israel Katz.
Meridor left after officials have for months charged Katz with pushing policies for political reasons with the goal of boosting Netanyahu and the Likud party. Katz has also been accused of stifling any dissent by ministry officials.
“I can’t lend a hand to the poor conduct taking place in recent months, which all Israeli citizens will pay a heavy price for in the coming years,” Meridor wrote in a resignation letter to Katz.
On Sunday the finance minister appointed Yogev Gardos, the deputy commissioner of macro budget affairs as acting head of the budget department and Meridor’s interim replacement.
Gardos will be tasked with heading the team that will assist Katz in passing the supplementary government budget and in laying out the budget for 2021.
During Monday’s discussion, Gardos stated that ”we are currently working on the framework approved in the 2020 budget law.”
After being asked by the committee how his department could function after such serious accusations were made by its former top official, and its decision-making process called into question, Gardos responded that ”the budget department is made up of 60 economists who get up every morning to do their jobs. What happened is unpleasant. We will do what is required of us and move on.”
At the end of the meeting, committee members voted whether or not the state comptroller should review the 2021 budget preparation process. The motion was voted down by members of the coalition, who make up a majority of the committee.
