The Finance Ministry asked the Finance Committee on Wednesday morning to approve a budget transfer of an additional NIS 200 million to Minister Orit Strock's Ministry of Settlements. This is in addition to the NIS 543 million already approved for this ministry. Opposition Knesset members say this is a hijacking.
According to MK Naama Lazimi (Labor), a member of the Finance Committee, "At 9:56 A.M., four minutes before the discussion, members of the Finance Committee sent us a budget request of 90 million in cash and another 110 in authorization to the Ministry of Settlements – 75 million of which went to "providing security components for the young settlement in Judea and Samaria."
Finance Committee. Deals at the 90th minute, photo: Oren Ben Hakon
"I no longer have words to describe the disgrace. This is a scandal like no other, a complete disregard for the Knesset and elected officials and all the rules of good governance. If security is so important, why doesn't it go through the Ministry of Defense? This is a waste of public funds that passes in a cynical and ridiculous manner in wartime. A real spit in the face of the reservists, abductees and evacuees."
Fruits in Finance Committee: Heads of Judea and Samaria Councils Demand Not to Vote on State Budget (Archive) // Knesset Channel
"Damn the reservists, the evacuees, the business owners"
Finance Committee member and former minister Orit Farkas Hacohen (State Camp) commented on the changes in the state budget and the transfer of another quarter of a billion shekels in collaborative funds: "Yesterday, in the middle of the night, the members of the Finance Committee are giving us the additional coalition transfers that will be rushed up for approval by the Finance Committee tomorrow morning – that is, today, now.
"More additions from our tax money to the Ministry of Heritage, the Ministry of Jerusalem and Mr. Avi Maoz. And this is after a discussion yesterday about the economic collapse of the city of Eilat - about which the finance minister is in no hurry. That's not what mutual responsibility looks like."
Stop the shame. Vladimir Belyak, Photo: Oren Ben Hakon
MK Vladimir Belyak (Yesh Atid), the opposition leader in the Finance Committee, said: "This morning at 9:55, just before the end of the financial year, the Finance Committee received another budget request to transfer funds to Orit Strock's Settlement Office. Smotrich and Strok are trying to transfer an additional NIS 200 million to this invented office. Really behavior of thieves at night. Another 200 million for a wartime party office.
"Of the 200 million shekels – 150 million shekels (75 million in cash) for the so-called "young settlement in Judea and Samaria", 50 million for all sorts of obscure "projects" in kidnapping, settlement, and so on. And damn the reservists, the evacuees, the business owners. The coalition looting continues, and even more so.
Maybe it's time for someone from the coalition – the Likud? The state camp? Will wake up and help stop this shame."
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