State Controller Y.E. Nebenzahl accused the Government of waste in a number of fields in his annual report today. The report criticized government allocations of budgetary reserves, export quotas, low port productivity, expensive road-building and unexplained government loans.
In a comment on the report, Dr. Nebenzahl declared that waste of taxpayers’ money penalized human beings, “the very people who depend on state money” for their education, social welfare and defense. He also asserted that “the longer we postpone correcting errors, the bigger the price we shall have to pay.” He urged greater Parliamentary supervision on implementation of state budget projects to avoid those which he called outwardly impressive but of lesser long-range utility.
His massive report sharply criticized the Finance Ministry for laying aside large reserves in its budget for unforeseen contingencies “which thus are not approved by Parliament.” The report declared that this was one of the “executive manipulations” permitting authorities to use funds without specific Parliamentary approval.
The report criticized the Ministry of Commerce and Industry for failing to keep a check on exports of firms which receive special Government export subsidies which the report said ran into “dozens of millions of pounds.” The report also was critical of a number of government-backed transactions, citing the purchase of a sugar refinery in which a “relatively large amount” of government funds were lost. It lauded the Israel Port Authority for its conservative accounting system but denounced low port productivity and “over-large” loans to workers.
LABOR, EDUCATION AND DEFENSE MINISTRIES COME UNDER FIRE
The report criticized the Labor Ministry for “very expensive” road-building projects and for lack of adequate coordination between the planning and building sectors. The controller also found that there were more than 6,000 unoccupied Government-built apartments estimated to have cost more than 100,000,000 pounds ($33,000,000). The report also said that some 800 apartments built before 1957 were still empty.
Government grants to schools of the ultra-Orthodox Agudat Israel also came under fire. The report asserted that the Agudah had failed to submit detailed reports on its expenditures to the Education Ministry. The report also charged bad housing and bad sanitary conditions in Agudah schools and that the Education Ministry appeared unable to bring about improvements.
The report found inconsistencies in the processing of loans for religious purposes by the Ministry for Religious Affairs. In no case, the report declared, was a reason recorded by the Ministry for either approving or rejecting such loans.
The Defense Ministry was criticized for using unbudgeted funds and for “vague” armament budgets. The report urged the Defense Ministry to budget as separate items each major arms, development and production project. The controller, who is appointed directly by Parliament, has presented a budget for his office to the Knesset’s Finance Committee where it will be debated.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
