Comptroller to publish damning report on housing crisis
Account of rise in apartment costs could have major impact with elections less than a month away
State Comptroller Yosef Shapira intends to publish a report on the housing crisis later this week in the face of objections from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party, Channel 2 reported on Sunday.
The report, which details government failings to address skyrocketing housing prices and unmet demand in the market, was scheduled to be put out next week.
However, the comptroller’s office wants to see it published sooner rather than later, to avoid giving the appearance that its release is politically motivated.
Shapira has been under pressure from Likud officials, who called for the report to not be published until after the national elections scheduled for March 17.
The account is expected to criticize the recent Netanyahu governments and that of his predecessor Ehud Olmert for how they dealt with the growing problem of providing enough affordable housing, especially for financially weaker sections of Israeli society.
“The report on the housing crisis deals with an important subject that has been on the public agenda for a long time. And the lack of apartments serious damages the weaker strata of the population,” Shapira said. “It is a trans-government and ministerial report that looked at many causes involved in the matter.
“The publication date was set a while ago,” Shapira noted. “The Knesset elections were what was brought forward.”
Former finance minister Yair Lapid cheered the news, saying it would reveal Netanyahu’s complicity in the crisis.
“The public must know what we had to deal with in the past year and eight months, and who is responsible for the crazy increased prices. For a year and eight months we fought the housing crisis, against a prime minister who always tried to trip us up,” Lapid said. “The report must be published, and Netanyahu knows very well why he wants to bar it from publication.”
However, government officials called on the comptroller to delay the report.
Housing Minister Uri Ariel (Jewish Home) told Israel Radio that waiting to publish the report in April, after the elections, would not diminish from its value or the significance of the points that it raises.
Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz (Likud) told Israel Radio that releasing the document in the run-up to the elections would deflect attention away from its important messages.
“The State Comptroller has the right publish any report he wants, about housing or any other subject, but he needs to understand that, because of the timing, the debate will be mostly political and not on the topic. And it is a shame, because this report surely has many things from which conclusions can be drawn,” he said.
The report is expected to deal with how housing was neglected with regard to the supply of land for construction and the implementation of policies and clear objectives. In addition, a special section of the report will deal with affordable housing and point at the alleged ongoing failure of government policy on the matter, especially after it was highlighted during influential social protests in 2011.
The prime minister’s reelection campaign was already tarnished by a expenditure report released by the State Comptroller last Tuesday, which detailed lavish spending by Netanyahu and his wife at his official residence in Jerusalem as well as at their private home in Caesarea and alleged possible criminal misdeeds by the couple.