Shama's real prank: bounced off the cost of maintaining the gardens - and took pride in bringing the price back
The mayor of Ramat Gan credited him with lowering the price of sand replacement in kindergartens - but data show that during his tenure, the price jumped by hundreds of thousands of shekels, despite low annual budget estimates and a slight increase in the number of kindergartens.
A complaint to the police about the alleged bribe to the city employee has not yet been filed
Uri Sela
10/05/2022
Tuesday, 10 May 2022, 18:42 Updated: 20:00
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Shama HaCohen (Photo: Reuven Castro)
The mayor of Ramat Gan Carmel Shama HaCohen was proud yesterday (Monday) that he managed to cut the price of sand replacement in kindergartens and even used a marketing ploy to advertise it.
But from data obtained by Walla!
It appears that when he took office, the price was not far from that after the reduction, and during his tenure it only swelled, despite low budget estimates for two years.
A complaint to the police about the bribe that he claims was offered to the municipal employee has not yet been filed.
In a post published by Emma Hacohen on his Facebook page, he wrote that "until now, the Ramat Gan municipality has paid NIS 820,000 every year for replacing the sand in the sandboxes of the kindergartens," and now the price will be NIS 390,000.
But according to the data, in 2017, when the mayor was Israel Singer, the cost of replacing the sand was NIS 450,000.
In 2018, the year in which Emma Hacohen was elected to the position, the price was 550,000, and since then it has only climbed: in 2019 it was 575,000, in 2020 678,000 and in 2021 it was 739,000 shekels.
The budget estimates for sand replacement in 2018 and 2019 were NIS 400,000 each year.
The municipality tried to explain the jump in price through the increase in the number of parks.
But from 2018 to 2021, their number rose from 229 to 237 - only 3%, compared to 34% in the price of sand replacement in that period.
More on Walla!
Shama HaCohen worked on the residents as part of a PR exercise - and in Ramat Gan are angry
To the full article
Yesterday the mayor wrote that "an employee of the education department found millions of shekels hidden in the sand in the middle of the process of cleaning and replacing the sand in the kindergartens" and promised to update with more details later.
About two hours later he revealed the PR exercise: The "millions" are the ones he said were saved when the construction director at the municipality rejected a bribe offer to bypass the tender to replace the sand in the gardens.
The exercise angered residents and city officials.
The revelation that the exercise was twofold - in the confusing post and inaccuracy in the data - only raised the criticism.
City Council member and chairman of the City Audit Committee, Avihu Ben Moshe, said in response that “Carmel whose mother is known for not liking takes responsibility for his actions and regularly accuses his predecessors of the corruption he has come to clean up.
However, Mr. Shama 'forgot' small 'detail' and 'margins', that exorbitant sand prices rose miraculously precisely during his tenure as mayor by almost twice as much as the previous term.
Had Mr. Shama been more concerned with the real management of the city and reading financial reports from the past, he would have discovered that corruption is growing and is climbing it in his shift.
The residents of the city of Ramat Gan are not as stupid as Mr. Shama thinks and imagines, and the change in its replacement, let it come. "
The Ramat Gan municipality stated in response that they "do not refer to any publications 'on behalf' of the municipality that are published in a trending manner. The employee prefers not to be the complainant but the mayor asked the municipality's legal counsel to file a complaint."
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