PMO said to boot official who blocked state renovation of Netanyahu private home

The Prime Minster’s Office has reportedly removed its chief accountant from his position, shortly after he blocked a request for NIS 450,000 ($125,000) of funding to renovate Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s private residence in Caesarea.

Eli Bitan, who transferred the request for funding to the Finance Ministry after deeming it “excessive,” will now himself be transferred to the Finance Ministry to serve as the director of its Information and Requests Department, Channel 10 reported Sunday.

Sources in the PMO reportedly said Bitan had made a number of efforts to prevent taxpayers from footing the bill for the prime minister’s expenses, describing him as a “big headache” for Netanyahu and his family.

A week ago, the channel reported that Bitan and the PMO’s top legal adviser, Shlomit Barnea Farago, who had the power to authorize the request on their own, instead decided asked for a legal opinion from the Finance Ministry, which rejected the application.

Following the rejection, Bitan was notified of his reassignment, which while considered a promotion, came only a year and a half after he began working at the PMO, the latest report said.

Government protocol is that the state must maintain the prime minister’s private residence, but may not make improvements. The ministry ruled that the amount requested would constitute renovations to improve the home, rather than simply maintain it.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s private residence in Caesarea. (Screen capture: Channel 10)

The Netanyahus bought the Caesarea home from a court receiver and according to professional assessments it was not in a good state when they purchased it.

The state has authorized extensive renovations to Balfour House, the prime minister’s official residence in Jerusalem. However, the Netanyahu family doesn’t want that work to begin until they are able to move temporarily into their own home in Caesarea. And they won’t move there until the maintenance work is completed.

After the request for NIS 450,000 was rejected, the Prime Minister’s Office came back with a lower request, for NIS 100,000 ($27,500) to seal up the roof and basement to make it watertight. The state has not yet made a decision on whether to approve this lower amount.

In response to the state’s rejection of the initial request, the PMO told Channel 10 that the decision went “against the protocol which requires the state to maintain the homes of prime ministers.”

Sara Netanyahu, wife of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, arrives at the Magistrate’s Court in Jerusalem on October 7, 2018. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Sara Netanyahu has long faced allegations of extravagant living and abusive behavior.

Last week she appeared at the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court for the opening of her trial on charges of fraud and breach of trust.

Sara Netanyahu, along with Ezra Saidoff, a former deputy director general of the Prime Minister’s Residence, faces charges of fraud and breach of trust for allegedly overspending roughly NIS 360,000 ($100,000) on private meals at the prime minister’s official residence, even when there was a full-time chef on staff.

The Netanyahus have denied any wrongdoing, and separate charges of excessive spending and charging the state for their private, expensive tastes.

This has included state comptroller reports that found Sara Netanyahu repeatedly tried to get funding for their private residence, including one instance when she purchased furniture, apparently for the official residence in Jerusalem, and then moved it to the Netanyahus’ private residence in Caesarea, while older furniture was taken back from Caesarea to the residence in Jerusalem.