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17 Tammuz 5763 - July 17, 2003 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
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NEWS
Shinui Forged Secret Agreement to Funnel NIS 123 Million in Discretionary Funds
by G. Lazer

A political storm raged following a report last Thursday that before joining the coalition the Shinui Party demanded NIS 123 million for distribution at its own discretion.

Party Chairman Minister Yosef Lapid recently received control of these funds and decided to grant NIS 45 million to actors, clowns, entertainers and theaters, NIS 55 million to university tuition fee subsidies and NIS 23 million to the collapsing high-tech industry.

At a press conference, Lapid said during the approval process for the 2003 state budget cuts, which totaled NIS 9 billion, he agreed to vote in favor of the cuts in exchange for NIS 123 million to distribute at his discretion, telling reporters the funds were given to him to after he objected to budget funding for yeshivas and other Torah institutions. Education Minister Limor Livnat called Lapid's decision "historic," noting this sum joins the NIS 28 million Prime Minister Ariel Sharon pledged for secular culture. Finance Ministry Budget Commissioner Uri Yogev is delaying the transfer of this sum saying that this special grant must first receive Finance Committee approval.

MK Rabbi Avrohom Ravitz termed the deal "political bribery and a return to the special funding system (yichudiim) that the Shinui Party fought against in the past."

MK Rabbi Moshe Gafni told Yated Ne'eman, "It is inconceivable to take from the public coffers funds that were intended for crisis sectors and grant them openhandedly to singers and actors. Presumably the Finance Committee will not approve such a move--totally illegal funding distribution. Committee members will scrutinize the issue of the grant to `culture' and will not allow the distribution of funds by a political party that wants to provide monetary benefit to its voters in the top tenth [socioeconomically], while neglecting the weak sectors that are not among Shinui voters."

According to MK Rabbi Gafni, Lapid's claim that the funds were given to him to counterbalance funds granted to yeshivas distorts the facts. Yeshivas and Torah institutions received budget funds to restore what certain individuals made a point of expunging based on a political aim of religious hatred, he explained. The Finance Minister, who examined the issue personally, reached the conclusion the yeshivas were seriously deprived of funds far beyond the cuts in other sectors and the Knesset approved the initiative in order to ameliorate the imbalance. Thus these were not new funds secretly funneled to the yeshivas.

"We are in the midst of a culture war," MK Gafni told the press. "Theater directors receive enormous salaries and budget bonuses while yeshivas suffer from a lack of food and yeshiva directors receive extremely low salaries that do not allow them to subsist in a dignified manner."

United Torah Jewry Chairman Rabbi Yaakov Litzman sent letters to the Attorney General and Knesset Legal Advisor Attorney Anna Schneider last week demanding the Economic Plan Law be annulled since the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister, in violation of the law, failed to divulge the existence of an agreement to distribute budget funds at their own discretion. Rabbi Litzman quoted the text of the law requiring that all coalition agreements, both verbal and written, be laid out before the Knesset. On the 27th of Iyar the Finance Minister told the Knesset, in a response to an inquiry, that except for a change in the plan that the government promised the Mafdal no obligations were made to any other party.

Legal affairs commentator Moshe Hanegbi said last week that this "political maneuver" is illegal and contradicts an explicit High Court ruling. Hanegbi warned "against the danger of bringing Israeli democracy to days of darkness." Twenty years ago the High Court stopped the distribution of special funds by parties, saying it was immoral and improper to make allocations dependent on having a lobby in the government, yet in the present situation were Shinui not in the government the theaters would not receive special budget allocations.

Hanegbi stressed that the Government Foundation Law explicitly states that agreements on fund distribution cannot be made in order to set up a coalition unless the Knesset is informed in advance. The Knesset must determine priorities rather than leaving decisions in the hands of a minister who agrees to join the government. Lapid must first establish his credibility to the government and only afterwards to his voters. Hanegbi expressed concerns the Finance Committee would approve Lapid's decision since the coalition has a majority in the committee, therefore Hanegbi proposed a High Court appeal to halt the move. "The Finance Minister cannot use budget funds entrusted to him to exempt himself from last- minute coalition problems," concluded Hanegbi.

 

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