|
|
NEWS
Finance Committee Approves Transfer of only Two-Thirds of
Chareidi Cultural Funding
by Eliezer Rauchberger
The Knesset Finance Committee voted unanimously last week to
transfer NIS 36.037 million ($8 million)--two-thirds of the
total amount budgeted for 2003--to the Education Ministry for
chareidi cultural organizations, which work to provide Torah
shiurim and lectures. Before the vote was taken, MK
Rabbi Moshe Gafni, who has been trying to obtain budget
approval for months, protested the prolonged red-tape that
has brought many chareidi organizations to the verge of
collapse. "We are already at the beginning of August 2003 and
since the beginning of the year the budget for chareidi
cultural organizations has yet to be transferred. People
there have not received their salaries for several months.
The injustice done to them cries up to the Heavens. We have
made contact and spoken with everyone conceivably possible,
including the Finance Minister, the Education Minister and
the Finance Committee Chairman, but so far nothing has been
done. In the end it was only through the intervention by
Netanyahu and Hirschson, who persuaded the Finance officials
that we will not allow this abuse against the chareidi
organizations to continue, that the funds were transferred
even today."
Gafni also protested the Finance Ministry's decision to
transfer only two-thirds of the budget, even though the funds
come from mandatory surplus funds which cannot be used for
any other purpose. "Today, Israel's chareidi sector is in
exile and this is the best proof of it. No other entity would
have dared to do what has been done to the chareidi cultural
organizations. Not only did [Finance Ministry officials]
withhold the budget funds for seven months, but afterwards
they transferred only two-thirds of the funds earmarked for
them."
|
