"Every person laid off now should be hung around the finance minister's neck."
"An committee of inquiry should be set up to investigate the conduct of the Ministry of Finance during 2008, when the warning lights were already flashing about the harm to the competitiveness of exports resulting in the drop in growth," Manufacturers Association of Israel president Shraga Brosh told "Globes" today.
Brosh continued, "Throughout the year, the finance minister's conduct was irresponsible and dangerous to the economy and society. Every person laid off now should be a hung around the finance minister's neck. Most of the layoffs are not the result of an unpredictable crisis that reached us, but the result of severe damage to exports that began a year ago, a crisis caused by a man who could have prevented it. I sounded the alarm back in January 2008. I warned, and what did I get? I was accused of being hysterical and a crybaby. The Ministry of Finance was paralyzed. The minister of finance has caused irreversible harm that should be investigated."
Brosh is furious. His associates say that he is a nervous wreck. He feels that he was betrayed by the Ministry of Finance and that he is alone in the fight to save Israeli industry and, to a large extent, to save the entire economy. What set him off today was Minister of Finance Ronnie Bar-On's comments blaming the Knesset Finance Committee and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for torpedoing his ministry's economic stimulus plan.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on December 4, 2008
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2008