Welfare Ministry director general says she was abruptly fired by Deri
Sigal Moran tells staff she was told to leave immediately before the handover to an as-yet-unnamed successor; Shas party denies allegations
Outgoing Welfare Ministry director general Sigal Moran said Monday that she was told to leave her post immediately and without completing a handover, on the orders of Interior Minister Aryeh Deri.
Deri is leader of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party whose member Ya’akov Margi is the new welfare minister. No replacement for Moran has yet been announced.
Though the Welfare Ministry had announced the previous day that Moran would not continue as director general under Margi, it had said that the two would hold meetings to ensure that ministry business would continue to run smoothly. Moran was reportedly interested in staying on at the ministry where she was installed by previous welfare minister Meir Cohen, now an opposition lawmaker for Yesh Atid.
Moran sent a letter to ministry staff Monday saying, “To my surprise and disappointment, the minister has now informed me that Deri demands that I end the position immediately. I admit that I did not expect this. I intended to finish properly, to give a proper handover.”
A statement on behalf of Deri tersely denied the accusation and said simply, “There was no such thing.”
A ministry source told the Ynet news site Monday that the sudden ousting of Moran was a political backlash against the previous government. Moran joined Yesh Atid in 2017 but did not run for Knesset in the 2019 elections.
”What reason in the world can justify terminating a position immediately, before a replacement has been chosen, without allowing for a proper overlap? One can only conclude that this is vindictiveness and a desire to clean out the stables quickly,” the source said.
The Welfare Ministry said in response to reports about Moran’s letter that the decision to let her go was entirely Margi’s.
“The minister completely rejects the attempt to attribute irrelevant considerations to his legitimate decision. The minister intends to immediately appoint one of the ministry’s senior deputy director generals as acting DG in order to create a functional continuum,” the statement said.
Last week over 500 people with disabilities or their families sent a letter to Margi asking him to keep Moran in her office, the Maariv daily reported at the time.
Moran’s removal without a handover came after some of the incoming ministers skipped the traditional handover ceremonies with their predecessors, or held them behind closed doors. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a relatively brief handover with former premier Yesh Atid leader MK Yair Lapid, meeting with him at the Knesset rather than at the Prime Minister’s Office as is usually the case. There were no photos published of the meeting.
Norwegian Law expense
Also Monday, the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee heard estimates on the cost of a system that allows ministers to resign from their Knesset seats, enabling their seats to be taken up by others further down their respective party slates.
Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party is proposing a bill to expand the use of the so-called Norwegian Law that would enable up to 26 ministers and their deputies to be replaced in the Knesset.
The Knesset’s research and information center told the committee that the annual cost to the state of each MK is NIS 1.95 million ($560,6410). NIS 800,000 ($230,000) goes on salary and another NIS 780,000 ($224,256) on up to three parliamentary advisers, NIS 102,000 ($29,300) for funding the lawmaker’s office, another NIS 112,000 ($32,160) for a car and NIS 156,000 ($44,790) for overhead.
Up to 18-20 MKs are expected to enter the Knesset under the Norwegian Law, making the total additional cost for the government NIS 35 million-NIS 39 million ($10 million to $11 million) a year over a four-and-a-half year term.
Channel 12 reported that under the proposed expansion of the law, which will enable more ministers to resign from the Knesset, the Likud party could bring a further six lawmakers into parliament at a cost of NIS 11.7 million ($3,361,950) a year to state coffers.
In addition, coalition deals have seen several new ministries established or divided into separate portfolios, with each such move costing around NIS 6.2 million ($1,780,440).
The estimates came as Diaspora Affairs Minister MK Amichai Chikli of Likud said Monday he too will resign under the Norwegian Law. His seat in the Knesset will be taken up by Amit Halevi.
The law allows any MK who is appointed to a cabinet post to resign temporarily from the Knesset, thereby permitting the next candidate on the party’s list to enter parliament in his or her stead. Currently, if that minister later resigns from the cabinet, they would automatically return to the Knesset.
However, at the Likud faction meeting in the Knesset on Monday Transportation Minister Miri Regev proposed adjusting the law so that ministers can reclaim their seats — causing the exit of the replacement MK from the Knesset — without having to resign from cabinet first. Such a move would leave the replacement MKs at the mercy of the minister who would be able to fire them at will, the Kan public broadcaster reported.
The cabinet numbers 32 ministers and deputies. Advocates of the Norwegian Law say it enables ministers to focus on their portfolios while bringing in lawmakers who can then attend to parliamentary business in the Knesset.
