Israel's defense budget continues to rise: the Knesset Finance Committee today approved a NIS 2.5 billion supplement for the Ministry of Defense, bringing the 2015 defense budget to almost Nis 70 billion, up from the NIS 56 million approved in the original budget.
The financial sources for the supplement will come from the budget surpluses in government ministries in 2014 that were initially transferred to the general reserve and from there to defense. The supplement was agreed following claims by the Ministry of Defense that that the original budget would not enable it to meet its commitments and after the joint committee for the defense budget had voted against it.
MKs from opposition parties were critical of an additional supplement for defense saying that repeated supplements "made a mockery of the committee and made the annual budget approved by the Knesset plenum into a fiction." They claimed that the surpluses had been set aside to cover Israel's national debt.
Chairman of the Finance Committee MK Moshe Gafni (United Torah Judaism) said, "We have approved what we all knew would be required and what we all understand we must approve in order to let the Ministry of Defense meet its targets."
MK Zehava Gal-On (Meretz) said, "The gluttonous defense budget is just growing and growing and where was everybody that is asking to increase it now one month ago when we approved the annual budget? They didn't know then that there would be a need to increase the budget? They didn't know about these surpluses then? They also said that all transfers to the defense budget would be transparent according to the Locker Committee decisions but doesn't the method of doing this circumvent the recommendations and make a joke of the committee, which has become a rubber stamp for the Ministry of Defense."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on December 28, 2015
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