The Knesset Finance Committee today approved an across-the-board cut to ministries and the transfer of over NIS 7.3 billion to finance various social programs. The committee also approved a NIS 7.2 billion defense budget supplement to finance the construction of the IDF training base city in the Negev, speed up construction of the Sinai border fence, the construction of a detention facility for illegal migrants near Ketziot, and other purposes that the Ministry of Finance's Budget Department refused to detail to the committee.
As part of the budget changes, the Finance Committee approved a NIS 1.6 billion transfer to the adjustments budget for social programs in 2012. The allocations include NIS 730 million to expand negative income tax grants for working mothers pursuant to law to change the tax burden, which the committee approved in late 2011; and as a reserve to finance minimum wage payments, following the increase in the minimum wage in mid-2011. The committee also approved NIS 100 million for equalization grants to local authorities, NIS 42 million for water rate rebates for the handicapped and needy, and a NIS 60 million budget supplement for Holocaust survivors.
Committee member MK Ruhama Avraham-Balila (Kadima) criticized the Ministry of Finance's biennial budget, saying, "It turns out that the biennial budget that the finance minister is so proud of is nothing more than a bluff. The finance minister promised that the biennial budget would create budget planning stability and continuity, but it practice it constantly changes. 2012 is only just beginning, and it's already unrecognizable."
The Ministry of Defense said in response, "We emphasize that this is no way an increase to the defense budget, but approval for commitments at the expense of coming years, since this is a multiyear contract. The Finance Committee also approved budgets for national tasks that the government imposed on the Ministry of Defense, because of its ability to carry them out, as well asNIS 280 million to complete the final and most complicated section of the security fence in the south (in the Eilat Mountains), and NIS 250 million to build the detention facility for illegal migrants."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on March 5, 2012
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