PM’s office says agreement reached on disability benefits bill

The Prime Minister’s Office said Monday an agreement was reached on a bill to raise disability benefits after a dispute between the Finance and Welfare Ministries threatened to hold up the draft legislation’s advancement in the Knesset.

In a statement, the PMO said the agreement, which will allocate an additional NIS 4.2 billion ($1.23 billion) for disability benefits, was reached during a conference call between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon, and Welfare Minister Haim Katz.

It said the bill will now advance to the Ministerial Committee for Legislation, whose approval is necessary for the legislation to be voted on in the Knesset.

The statement from the PMO came as the spat between the Finance and Welfare Ministries threatened to derail the bill from coming up for a first plenum reading on Monday.

The government bill was scheduled to be voted on by the Ministerial Committee for Legislation, then by the Finance Committee, and followed by a first reading in the Knesset, all by the end of the day.

However, the ministerial committee put off the vote after the Finance Ministry’s budgeting department failed to reach an agreement with the Welfare Ministry, over linking the allowances to the average wage index, an Israel Radio report said.

Disability allowances are currently linked to the consumer price index.

Earlier, the disabled rights protest group, the “Panthers,” set up a protest tent near Kahlon’s home in Haifa over to the delay.

הקפה כבר מוכן במאהל המחאה של הנכים מול ביתו של שר האוצר @KahlonMoshe pic.twitter.com/RIASFimmdO

— sami abdulhamid سامي عبد الحميد (@samiaah10) January 29, 2018

Over recent months, disabled groups have been leading protests that have brought traffic to a standstill by blocking junctions, highways and major arterial streets in cities throughout the country.

Protests by the disabled began in March last year, after a Knesset committee rejected for the third time a bill aimed at bringing disabled benefits up to the level of the minimum wage.

They continued throughout the summer while the Knesset was in recess, and were ramped up towards the end of the year, pushing the issue to the top of the national agenda, with protests causing major traffic jams daily.

At the beginning of the month, government ministers announced that they will raise the budget for disability benefits by more than NIS 2 billion ($580 million) in 2018, nearly half a billion shekels more than previously planned, in an attempt to reach an agreement with the activists.

The deal, reached by Netanyahu, Kahlon and Katz, was to see a budget hike of NIS 2.14 billion ($630 million) over the year, with one raise scheduled at the end of January and another in June. An initial plan approved last month saw an increase in 2018 of NIS 1.45 billion ($416 million).

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.