Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and 30 other ministers and deputy ministers
were due to submit their responses on Thursday to a draft State Comptroller’s
Report on the “Bibi-Tours” affair.
The draft reportedly reviewed
allegations of improper funding and double billing for international trips
Netanyahu and other top officials took.
It is widely believed that the
prime minister and other officials did send responses to the state comptroller,
but by press time there was no confirmation of the content of the responses or
when they were filed. However, the responses would have been kept confidential
in any case.
State Comptroller Joseph Shapira sent Netanyahu the draft of
the report at the end of December, Channel 2 reported at the time.
In
March 2011, Channel 10 investigative reporter Raviv Drucker reported on his
show, Hamakor, on a series of flights that Netanyahu took with his wife, Sara,
in the late 1990s and early 2000s – flights allegedly funded by wealthy
associates.
According to Drucker’s report, Netanyahu allegedly used a
carefully crafted network of such associates to finance private flights, luxury
hotel suites, first-class restaurants, and trips abroad for him and his family –
benefits that the show characterized as ethical infractions.
In April
2011, Drucker made additional allegations on his show, alleging that on two
occasions before he became prime minister, Netanyahu billed different
organizations for the same flight.
According to the reporter, in one
case, Netanyahu attended a 2006 fundraising event in the US for the Ashdod
Medical Center, billing it $8,237 for the flights. He allegedly billed the
Jewish Heritage Foundation the same amount for flights he took on the same
dates.
The final report is expected to come out in a few
months.
Jerusalem Post Staff contributed to this report.
|