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State Comptroller criticises Netanyahu’s excessive spending, Likud points to media campaign
Israel’s State Comptroller, Joseph Shapira yesterday published a long-anticipated report into expenditure at the Prime Minister’s residence and Benjamin Netanyahu’s family home in Ceasarea.
The report examined allegations of excessive and wasteful expenditure of public money at the residences. The 40-page report focused on spending from 2010-12 and concluded that cleaning expenditure in particular was “excessive” and that food spending “was inconsistent with basic principles of proportionality, reason, effectiveness and thrift.”
In addition, the report also alleges that residence staff were not reimbursed for expenses paid out of their own pocket and that an electrician had been hired even though his membership of Netanyahu’s Likud Party made this unethical. The report also addressed allegations that Netanyahu’s wife profited from depositing empty bottles left over from official functions and that state funds had been used to purchase garden furniture for the Ceasarea home. The State Comptroller said that information on both cases and the electrician’s employment had been handed to the Attorney General as “there was concern that a crime had been committed.”
In response to the report, a Likud Party statement said, “The prime minister respects the comptroller report’s recommendations,” but that, “A large part of recommendations were already implemented before the report was written.” The statement also pointed the finger at “the ongoing media campaign around this report in recent weeks” which it alleged is designed to distract the public “from the issue that is truly important: Who will protect the State of Israel from the immense security threats … Benjamin Netanyahu, or [Zionist Union leaders] Tzipi (Livni) and Buji (Isaac Herzog).”
In response, Herzog, whose faction is currently polling neck and neck with Likud ahead of next month’s general election said, “The only thing that surprises me is that on a day like this … is that the prime minister felt no need to stand before the public and personally face the difficult allegations,” which he described as “severe.” Herzog added, “Netanyahu owes a reckoning to the Israeli public.”