Deputy Attorney General Yoram Bar-Sela — in a letter to some Cabinet Ministers — has recommended that the contract between Israel and the U.S. to build a Voice of America transmitter in the Negev should be renegotiated.
Bar-Sela sent the letters to all Ministers concerned with the project saying the present contract did not seem to guarantee enough work to Israeli companies.
The Cabinet formally endorsed an agreement to build the transmitter on August 3 after U.S. assurances that no less than half of the contracts for the construction of the facilities would go to Israeli companies.
Some senior Finance Ministry officials agreed with Bar-Sela’s recommendation, but the Communications Minister argued that the verbal understandings between the United States and Israel were sufficient to guarantee that a major part of the work would be awarded to Israeli industries.
Amnon Rubinstein, Minister of Communications, said in a press conference in Haifa Wednesday that at least half of the approximately $300 million cost for the construction will be spent in areas suffering from unemployment and lack of capital.
Prime Minister Shimon Peres and Vice President George Bush approved the accord during Bush’s visit to Israel two weeks ago. The Reagan Administration has said it attaches major importance to boosting the VOA’s output to the Soviet Bloc countries. The VOA station in the Negev will comprise 16 tower antennae, each the height of a 70-story building.
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.
