Yeshiva subsidies that had been withheld last month were
transferred almost in their entirety last week. This brings to
an end the latest Finance Ministry incitement campaign against
the yeshiva world.
Of the 300 institutions whose subsidies were withheld due to
errors found in audits performed by independent accountants,
270 institutions were approved in subsequent audits. The
Ministry promises to transfer the additional funds owed to the
chareidi sector in a timely manner.
On 3 Elul, Rabbi Moshe Gafni, chairman of the Knesset Internal
Affairs Committee, expressed his perplexity about the delay in
funding to the chairman of the Religious Affairs Ministry. As
a result, Rabbi Gafni and the Director of the Religious
Affairs Ministry met with the assistant general bursar of the
Finance Ministry, Tzvika Chalamish, who agreed to transfer
funds to the 270 institutions. Audits of the records of the
other 30 institutions will be completed shortly.
Rabbi Gafni was referring to the following items: NIS 9
million to shmittah observing farmers; NIS 11 million
to seminaries; a promise to increase subsides for growing
talmudei Torah and monies owed to the yeshiva world. A
number of the subsidies were due months ago. During
negotiations for this year's budget, the Finance Minister had
promised that the funds would be transferred. However, no
moves in that direction had been made.
The Office of the Finance Minister has announced that,
"Minister Shalom has instructed the staff of the Budget
Department to transfer the money immediately, and the money
for the shmittah observing farmers will be forwarded
on Sunday, Elul 7. The other subsidies will be transferred
shortly."
The Finance Ministry had withheld the subsidies of 300 Torah
institutions last month, after audits indicated that the
yeshivos had supposedly not abided by all necessary
bureaucratic procedures.
Following that announcement, Finance Ministry and Religious
Affairs Ministry clerks spent hours going over lists and
formulating new procedures to process the subsidy request
forms for Torah institutions. 270 out of 300 (90%) of the
institutions were quickly approved following the second
audit.
Since the list of 300 was supposed to be a final list and not
just a preliminary one, the fact that 90 percent of it was
soon cancelled raised doubts about the motives in the original
announcement. Even the remaining 30 institutions are
undergoing further checking and many of them may be
approved.
Despite this, the Finance Ministry still delayed the transfer
of funds.
The noisy disqualification of hundreds of institutions aroused
the anger of the Religious Affairs Ministry, the yeshiva world
and the chareidi representatives in the Knesset against the
Finance Ministry, especially since some of the auditing was
done during bein hazmanim. Sometimes tiny institutions
with a total of ten students from whom two or three where
absent were disqualified, and in reporting on this the
auditors stated that 20-30 percent of the students were not
present.
Religious Affairs Ministry clerks also claim that the audit by
the Finance Ministry was conducted improperly and, as a
result, had to be repeated. However, the second audit was also
flawed. Clerks from both ministries went over all the lists
and found many mistakes stemming from auditing methods. As a
result of their work, 270 institutions were taken off the list
and will receive last month's subsidies.
Rabbi Moshe Gafni told Yated Ne'eman that next month
will also bring a problem in yeshiva subsidies, but that
Finance Minister Silvan Shalom has promised UTJ to transfer
the necessary funds. Rabbi Gafni said that we must make
certain that this promise is indeed fulfilled. "We are tired
of a situation in which the Torah world is held hostage by
Finance Ministry clerks and at the end of every fiscal year we
have to ask for the money owed us. We will insist that funding
for yeshivos be an integral part of the formulation of next
year's budget," Rabbi Gafni said.
