"The Ministry of Defense calculation of its unfunded pension is incomplete," Rony Hizkiyahu says.
18 months after the agreement between then-Minister of Defense Moshe Ya'alon and Minister of Finance Moshe Kahlon, Ministry of Finance Accountant General Rony Hizkiyahu admits that the Ministry of Finance is unable to estimate the state's liability for IDF bridging pensions. In a comment highlighted in bold yellow in the state reports for 2016 published today, Hizkiyahu writes, "As of the date of the publication of the final report, regulations had not yet been set for implementing the principles of the budget agreement for the Ministry of Defense' budget in 2015-2020. These principles established new rules for calculating the bridging pension of those serving in the permanent army and qualifying for a funded pension, including the rule that the bridging pension must not exceed the regular pension allowance." For this reason, the Accountant General said, "Calculating the liability for unfunded pensions in the Ministry of Defense is therefore incomplete, and does not represent the full liability."
Under the Kahlon-Ya'alon agreement signed in December 2015, a bridging pension is the pension paid to those serving in the permanent army from the date of their retirement from the IDF (age 43 for COs and age53 for NCOs) until they reach pension age (67 for men and 63 for women). The comment written by the Accountant General in the 2016 reports is almost identical to the comment written a year earlier by then-Accountant General Michal Abadi-Boiangiu in the reports for 2015. It can therefore be assumed that no progress has been made in the matter over the past year. The main difference between the two comments is that Abadi-Boiangiu explicitly accused the IDF of foot dragging, while Hizkiyahu refrained from explicitly naming the IDF. Asked by "Globes" who was responsible for the failure to complete the regulations, a failure that was preventing the Accountant General from estimating the IDF unfunded pension liabilities, the Ministry of Finance spokeswoman answered, "The matter is the subject of joint work by the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Defense."
Published by Globes [online], Israel Business News - www.globes-online.com - on August 21, 2017
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2017
Rony Hizkiyahu Photo: Tamar Matsafi