People collect goods that washed ashore in Ashkelon/Yinir Yagana
The Port of Ashdod announced yesterday morning the appointment of CPA Nissan Levy to the position of CEO of the Ashdod Port Company. Levy served in his last position as a senior vice president and board member at Mizrahi Tefahot Bank, and comes after a long career in the field of finance. The appointment will be submitted today for the approval of the board of directors and for the signature of Ministers Regev and Amsalem.
At the port of Ashdod, the appointment was received with astonishment when the employees were disturbed by the choice of an inexperienced person who did not come from the field: " They brought in a vice president from a bank, without a background in shipping and operations, and expect him to manage a port, which is made up of several strong employee committees, which it is doubtful that anyone coming from the banking field would be able to handle."
Sources at the bank also said that "Levi is Miri Regev's appointment and it is convenient for her that he has no experience, that way she will be able to control him through powerful parties at the port. She was unable to appoint Eli Bar Yosef, so she was content with appointing Yasman. It is not possible that the port of Ashdod, who has already entered the competition and is in a very problematic situation in all parameters, will get an inexperienced CEO and not a CEO who can correct the failures and bring him to be the leader in Israel"
for the past year and a half, the person who has served as the actual CEO is Eli Bar Yosef, a relative of Regev's appointed as a temporary replacement To the resigning CEO, Shiko Zena, in June 2022.
The Minister of Transportation, Regev, tried to appoint him almost by force and was unsuccessful after he was rejected by the appointments committee. A long time later, she still tried to make the temporary appointment permanent until she found the alternative solution in the form of the descent of an inexperienced CEO. The identity of the candidates this time, unlike the previous round, remained confidential.
Last January, a severe report by the State Comptroller on the port was published, which Stated that it lags behind the world and is in 13th place out of 14 ports tested, with a mechanism that gives bonuses to those who work less. The result is that ships are delayed several times more compared to the world practice, and that the port managed to cause billions in damage to imports and is responsible for a 0.1% increase in inflation.
Earlier this week, Regev suffered a setback with her moves at the Airports Authority, after the Appointments Committee disqualified her candidate for CEO, Ofer Malka, since he did not meet the threshold conditions for the position.
In recent months, the Minister of Transportation has been busy with another controversial appointment, this time for the CEO of the Airports Authority . The candidate who does not meet the threshold conditions this time is Ofer Malka, a member of Likud, who served as the Director General of the Ministry of Transportation for a year, was dropped by her to the Authority Council, and resigned from it to run for the high position.
The Authority Council, which it claims examined Malka's resume, found him suitable for the position, approved his appointment and moved him to the next stage, except that Vala Money received a screenshot of the only document presented to her friends - a sloppily written and missing resume: no dates, no details of how long he served in each position, and no real ability to wonder about the candidate's character.
"The council functioned as Regev's puppet," said an official at the Ministry of Transportation, "it did not fulfill its role as a body responsible for the authority, did not even perform a basic inspection and blindly obeyed the request of the Minister of Transportation, which makes its performance unacceptable. Where is the chairman of the council, Yitzhak Gershon? Why didn't he stop this disgrace?"
Following this, the Movement for the Quality of Government appealed to the minister and the council and demanded to freeze the appointment and even threatened to apply to the High Court. Attorney Stav Livna Lahav from the Movement for the Quality of Government stated that "an important victory in the fight against invalid political appointments and the appointment of a candidate who does not meet the threshold conditions for such a sensitive position. We call on the Minister of Transportation to learn from the case and promote only proper appointments free of political considerations. The Airports Authority needs stable and effective management to face the challenges ahead. The movement for the quality of government will continue to fearlessly fight against corruption and the violation of morals, for the sake of the public interest.