New state comptroller looks to end corruption probes – report

After his first month on the job, reports are emerging suggesting that new state comptroller Matanyahu Englman will be far less aggressive than his recent predecessors in seeking out government corruption, and more focused on the post’s traditional and uncontroversial role as the polite internal critic of the state bureaucracy.

The new moves include closing the department in the comptroller’s office responsible for corruption investigations, and including positive feedback in reports on state bodies, the Haaretz daily reported on Sunday.

Englman, an accountant by training and former education executive who ran the prestigious Technion institute of technology and the state’s top university regulator, the Council for Higher Education, was sworn in to the job on July 1. He is the first comptroller in three decades who is not a former judge.

His appointment, passed by the Knesset in June with the backing of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition, comes in the wake of two comptrollers, Micha Lindenstrauss and Yosef Shapira, who transformed the post into a key corruption watchdog — drawing praise from non-governmental watchdog groups, but also criticism from some politicians and officials for expanding the role of the office.

According to Haaretz, several recent reports compiled by the defense and economic departments of the State Comptroller’s Office were handed to Englman in recent days, but were returned to the departments with the instruction that they include “positive” statements highlighting what the state agencies reviewed in the reports are doing right.

“This isn’t the comptroller’s job,” unnamed officials in the office complained to the paper.

Englman is also allegedly planning to dramatically weaken the Special Assignments Department in the office, which has led the investigations into official corruption.

The department was established by Lindenstrauss after his appointment as comptroller in 2005, and soon became known for launching aggressive probes of suspected government corruption and leading multiple investigations into the affairs of public figures.

Together with the department’s investigators, Lindenstrauss was the first to find evidence of suspected wrongdoing by then-premier Ehud Olmert in what became known as the Talansky affair. He then investigated the “Harpaz affair” at the height of the feud between then-defense minister Ehud Barak and IDF chief Gabi Ashkenazi.

The investigation into Sara Netanyahu’s misuse of public funds, which ended in a conviction of the premier’s wife, also began in a report by the department during Shapira’s term.

Englman has reportedly suggested that the department should refocus its efforts away from corruption investigations and toward reviewing and critiquing other departments’ reports.

The report also said Englman has instructed his department heads to include officials from the agencies being reviewed in the discussions over what topics each year’s reports should focus on.

The State Comptroller’s Office, which is also the government’s office for public complaints, serves under the aegis of the Knesset and has authority to examine all agencies of government, even the most secretive. In part due to Lindenstrauss’s efforts, the agency has grown in recent years into a significant oversight body with hundreds of attorneys and accountants whose reports often lead to administrative and policy changes.

Lindenstrauss’s focus on corruption drew criticism from those who argued it marked an overstep of his authority, as the comptroller was not intended to serve as a criminal investigative unit. Critics also blamed him for repeated leaks to the media about corruption investigations during his term.

But others praised him for the investigations, and for his media savvy, arguing that under his leadership the comptroller’s office became an effective deterrent to official corruption.

Englman is among the critics of Lindenstrauss’s reshaping of the office. In a recent interview to the Israel Hayom daily, he called for a more “respectful” critique of state bodies.

“The comptroller deals with critique, not law enforcement,” he said. “The central challenge of this post is to create cooperation with the audited bodies. The inspection must not only point out failures, but also encourage excellence and good governance. You do that by making sure the inspection is respectful of the agencies it critiques, and protects their ability to make decisions…. Critique must come from respect, as a tool in the manager’s toolbox.”

In a response to the Haaretz report, the State Comptroller’s Office said Sunday that no decisions have been made regarding changes to the mission or makeup of the agency.

“The incoming comptroller is spending his time in deep study of the work of the State Comptroller’s Office and the Public Complaints Commissions, a process that includes many meetings and deep discussions with all parts of the office,” the office said. “His vision for the comptroller’s work, as well as [changes to] the manpower or procedures of the office, will be formulated only after this learning process is concluded.”