Sources inform "Globes" that top Ministry of Finance officials are at loggerheads over the planned reform of the power industry. Director of Wages Kobi Amsalem is adamantly opposed to the package emerging for Israel Electricity Company (IEC) workers as compensation for carrying out the reform.
Government Companies Authority director Ori Yogev, who is chairman of the committee on reform of the power industry, is still trying to reach agreement with the IEC workers committee, whose support of the reform is important to its success. The committee's report, however, is not conditional on reaching agreement with the workers. "Yogev knows that Amsalem represents opposition within the committee, and that he doesn't want to give money. As far as he is concerned, it would be better to have no reform at all," a committee member said.
"Globes" has also learned that Amsalem thinks that the power reform is liable to turn into "ports reform 2" if, for example, the state agrees to the workers demand that there should be a general amnesty for salary excesses, as happened at the ports. The ports reform is considered one of the Ministry of Finance's greatest ever failures, because the port workers, who are among the highest paid workers in the public sector, received about NIS 1 million, but did not allow the rest of the reforms the government had planned to go ahead. The person who led the reform at the time was Ori Yogev, then Director of Wages.
Amsalem suffered a setback this week when the Haifa Labor Court decided to delay its decision on the salary excesses by two months. The battle began last October when Amsalem announced that he had found apparent salary excesses among IEC workers amounting to NIS 150 million annually.
The Ministry of Finance said in response, "The Yogev committee is discussing reform of the power industry. The committee's recommendations are currently before the ministry's management and the minister for approval."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on March 13, 2014
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