Report Will Be Published New Scandal Looms over Sinai Thefts

The State Controller’s report charging the theft of tens of millions of dollars worth of equipment and installations from Sinai directly after the 1967 Six-Day War by both private and government bodies will be published by the Knesset Finance Committee next month, it was announced today. The published report will, however, omit two pages which contain “a factual description of certain activities of the Military Government.”

The omission was requested by State Attorney General Meir Shamgar on grounds that the information was sensitive and could harm Israel’s foreign relations.

The disclosure of the thefts in an official State report had the makings of the second major scandal in less than 12 months involving government agencies in the Sinai. Israel was rocked last May by charges of bribery, theft and mismanagement lodged against the management of Netivei Neft, a government-owned oil drilling firm operating Egyptian wells in Sinai.

Shamgar and Finance Committee chairman Yisrael Kargman stressed that “the sections of the report dealing with thefts will all be published.” Informed sources here said that it could be deduced from what is known to have occurred in the Sinai immediately after the Six-Day War that the two classified pages probably describe how government authorities responsible for Sinai permitted the removal of millions of dollars worth of equipment by State corporations.

That section of the Controller’s report reportedly charges the authorities with failure to guard the equipment or to investigate the thefts after they occurred. According to various sources, equipment and installations belonging to Egyptian and foreign companies engaged in oil drilling in Sinai were removed by both government agencies and private contractors engaged by the government in contravention of international conventions signed by Israel.