The Jewish National Fund (JNF) will pay NIS 1.2 billion to the state treasury and substantially increase its involvement in environmental protection. This was agreedyesterday by representatives of the Minister of Finance and Minister of Environmental Protection Avi Gabai and JNF director general Meir Spiegler. The arrangement will become effective after the cabinet approves it 10 days from now.
Under the arrangement, JNF consented to the appointment of a steering committee for financing infrastructure projects, as requested by the Ministry of Finance. The committee, which will include the Prime Minister's Office director general, the Ministry of Finance budget department head, and the JNF chairman, will receive a budget from JNF's annual land management revenue from the Israel Land Authority (ILA).
As part of its proposed state budget, the Ministry of Finance wanted this budget to amount to no less than 65% of JNF's income, thereby curbing its high management expenses. Gabai accepted JNF's argument that it had no control over the amount of its revenue, and that it was therefore possible that the remaining 35% would be inadequate to pay for its essential expenses.
The agreed formula states that the committee's budget will be no less than 70% of JNF's net income, after deducting expenses. In order to prevent JNF from inflating its expenses, it was agreed that these would be determined in advance.
An interesting and surprising clause in the agreement states that JNF will take the state's place in paying for the Israel Nature and National Parks Protection Authority, in exchange for increasing the number of its representatives on the Authority's board of directors from one to three. The state currently provides the Authority with NIS 220 million annually, amounting to 40% of its budget.
The third element of the arrangement states that the validity of the covenant between the state and JNF, which expired at the end of August, will be extended by two years. The extension is designed to allow time for negotiations for a new covenant to replace the historic one, parts of which have become irrelevant.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on September 3, 2015
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