PM denies plans to build NIS 650 million residence
Government has already spent hundreds of thousands of shekels on the project, report says
The Prime Minister’s Office on Thursday denied rumors that the government planned to build a new NIS 650 million ($180 million) prime ministerial residence, despite a report that hundreds of thousands of shekels had already been spent on the project.
Sources in the PMO told Channel 10 news that the rumors amounted to further “personal attacks” on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In 2009, Netanyahu slammed then-prime minister Ehud Olmert for floating a very similar plan for a multi-functional residential facility. Netanyahu described that plan as scandalous and promised that the project would never go through on his watch.
But over the past several months, hundreds of thousands of shekels have reportedly been directed toward the planning of the current mega-project, with most of the money going to the architectural firm of Ram Karmi. Karmi, who died earlier this year, was the man tasked by Olmert with the job of planning the facility four years ago.
According to documents obtained by Channel 10, a representative from Netanyahu’s office was present at a planning meeting for the project two months ago.
Despite indications that the building being currently planned would serve an identical or similar function as the one planned by Olmert, the PMO refused to confirm the connection, instead referring to a decade-old plan to relocate to new “government facilities.”
Stopping the process now, sources in the PMO said, would nullify all of the progress made, thus apparently acknowledging that some sort of construction was in the pipeline.