Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich has agreed to transfer budgets amounting to NIS 200 million, which he had frozen, to Arab local authorities in Israel. His decision followed a long meeting that ended after midnight with Minister of the Interior Moshe Arbel, who insisted that the budgets must be transferred, the head of the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet), police chief Yaakov Shabtai, and heads of Arab local authorities. Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir was absent from the meeting.
Up to now, Smotrich had refused to pay Arab local authorities money due to them as budget-balancing and development grants, on the grounds that he was thereby halting the leaking of such grants to crime organizations in the Arab sector.
In the end, he consented to the transfer of the budgets, after "the local authority heads agreed to the principle that all budgets should be transferred through operating, supervision, and control mechanisms that will ensure that the budgets are transferred for the benefit of Israel’s Arab citizens and not to crime organizations," according to a joint statement issued by Smotrich and Arbel.
The statements says that the supervision mechanisms will be formulated and approved by the government within two weeks. Subject to that, the Ministry of Finance will immediately transfer the current budget for 2023 to the Ministry of the Interior, against a commitment from the minister of the interior that the money will be transferred to the local authorities only after the mechanisms in question have been put together.
It was also agreed that the Minister of Finance will immediately budget tens of millions of shekels for the technological means that the Israel Police requires for upgrading enforcement among Israel’s Arab population.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on August 28, 2023.
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2023.