Top officials at the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor, headed by the then Minister of Industry, Trade and Labor and current Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, and former director general and current Prime Minister’s Office director general Raanan Dinur used the Israel Small and Medium Enterprises Authority (ISMEA) to make inappropriate political appointments, says a report published yesterday by State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss.
Lindenstrauss stated that the officials made a political appointment when they created the post of deputy director general for Adv. Lilach Nehemia, then the partner of Minister of Finance Abraham Hirchson, who served at that time as chairman of the Knesset Finance Committee. Lindenstrauss adds that Nehemia had been disqualified from serving as a director in a government company because of her personal political contacts.
The report also notes that after Nehemia took up her post, the ISMEA approved a series of new projects and engaged the services of outside contractors who were also members of the Likud Central Committee, Olmert’s political party at that time. Two of these contractors were later candidates for a position on the Likud national secretariat.
Lindenstrauss stated that the findings of his report raise suspicions that that the ISMEA “initiated projects for which employees were recruited in an improper and inequitable process that had no regard for the norms of the public legal procedures that required of it to act in accordance with rules of proper administration, and whose main characteristic was apparently the close relationship to the Minister’s political party.”
Lindenstrauss has forwarded his findings to Attorney General Menhem (Meni) Mazuz, and Ministry of Finance Accountant General Dr. Yaron Zalika. The two officials will be asked to express an opinion on the ISMEA’s organizational structure, which has allowed “threshold safeguards” to be circumvented, and its failings in all matters relating to hiring of employees and project managers and the use made by Ministry officials in such matters to benefit political associates of Olmert’s party.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on August 28, 2006
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