Public Policy in Israel by David Nachmias & Gila Menahem

Author:David Nachmias & Gila Menahem [Nachmias, David & Menahem, Gila]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, Public Policy, General, Social Science, Regional Studies
ISBN: 9780714650906
Google: D0UonxzkG-UC
Goodreads: 14896392
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2002-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

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The state comptroller’s annual report for 1991 criticized the Likud minister of health, Ehud Olmert, for evading established procedures in the purchase of hospital equipment. The minister had ordered that certain equipment, that was worth US $800,000, be purchased with funds said allegedly to have been contributed by an anonymous foreigner. Despite repeated requests and demands by the state comptroller, Olmert refused to divulge the contributor’s name. He claimed that the contribution was meant to be anonymous, and to support purchase of medical equipment from Israeli manufacturers. The state comptroller concluded that even if those were the true intentions of a donor, the ministry should have followed established procedures for identifying equipment needed by hospitals, and inviting competitive bids from Israeli manufacturers. It indicated in the report that the head director of the company supplying the equipment was active in the minister’s political party.24

These cases demonstrate the political sensitivity of issues investigated by the state comptroller and it should be no surprise that politicians seek to enlist the auditor’s skills and prestige for their own purposes. A legislator’s request that the auditor look into issues with policy relevance is not likely to be an innocent request that is isolated from politics. Legislators and the interest groups that often prompt investigations seek the support of the auditor’s prestige, and may request reports that may blur the distinction between the audit of programme implementation and the audit of politically sensitive issues of public policy.

During the 1992–96 tenure of the government headed by Yitzhak Rabin and then Shimon Peres, two opposition party members of the Knesset audit committee asked the state comptroller to review the decision of the Prime Minister’s Office to finance the publication of a booklet reviewing the government’s accomplishments. According to the opposition members, the booklet should have been financed out of the budgets of the political parties that were members of the governing coalition.25 In addition, policy activists have asked the state comptroller to look into the re-zoning of agricultural land for residential construction (which could bring substantial profits to kibbutzim affiliated with the governing Labour party), to survey radio and television broadcasts for political bias, to address the subject of police violence towards those who participate in right-wing political protests, and to investigate the decision of the Foreign Ministry to reduce the number of copies of the Jerusalem Post distributed free to opinion leaders in foreign countries (the Jerusalem Post is Israel’s only daily English-language newspaper, and had taken right-wing postures in opposition to the government).26

On the other hand, policy-makers and other policy activists whose interests are threatened by an auditor’s report are likely to charge that the audit body has exceeded its stated mandate. When the state comptroller requested a delay in the sale of government shares in a major bank and the reconsideration of a grant to a chemical company, the minister of industry and trade charged that the state comptroller, Miriam Ben-Porat, exceeded her authority by criticizing matters related to policy decisions rather than issues of clean government.

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