One of the documents obtained by Attorney General Menachem (Meni) Mazuz gives rise to suspicion that members of the Israel Electric Corporation (IEC) management and workers committee either applied, or could have applied, pressure on fired Minister of National Infrastructures Joseph Paritzky.
The pressure may have caused Paritzky to sign a document that in effect canceled a government decision on the future of Israel’s electric power industry. The IEC workers immediately halted their sanctions after the document was signed. IEC management and workers and Paritzky kept the document secret until recently, but IEC management and workers have published excerpts from it.
The document, entitled, “A summary announcement with the IEC workers committee”, was signed on August 12, 2003. Two months earlier, the Knesset passed a law changing the IEC’s structure, which IEC management and workers committee made every effort to prevent.
The document was initialed after a meeting attended by Paritzky, his media consultant, his ministerial assistant, outgoing IEC chairman Eli Landau, president and CEO Jacob Razon, spokesman Dedi Golan, and various workers committee members, headed by acting chairman David Biton. Biton has admitted that he paid the salary of private investigator Yaakov Eshel, who was filmed discussing the framing of then MK Avraham Poraz (Shinui), currently Minister of Internal Affairs.
The document is headed by the following declaration: “The Minister of National Infrastructures, the IEC national workers organization, and IEC management have reached agreement.” Among other things, it was agreed to establish a committee of three “to consider issues involving structural changes in the electric power industry.”
The composition of the three-member committee dismayed the supporters of structural changes, which had already been legislated. The committee consisted of the Ministry of Finance director general, the Ministry of National Infrastructures director general, and the IEC CEO. A representative of the workers committee was given observer status.
According to the document, together with the committee’s work, “The parties will act to increase electric capacity in the Israeli economy to a stable reserve usual in the Western world, in order to create a minimal market for instituting structural change, in accordance with the committee’s recommendations.”
The workers demanded that structural change be delayed until an initial reserve of 25% was reached, while current reserves are only 5-8%. Paritzky consented to 15%, but the parties decided not to state a final figure.
On the same occasion, Paritzky also accepted another demand by the IECb and its workers to take part in desalination projects, which had previously been prevented by the Ministry of Finance and the Antitrust Authority out of concern over a takeover by the electricity monopoly, and the creation of a desalination monopoly.
Published by Globes [online] - www.globes.co.il - on July 12, 2004