Comptroller tilts at public corruption

Airports Authority employs 829 workers related to at least one other employee.

By DAN IZENBERG
lind 88 (photo credit: )
lind 88
(photo credit: )
Despite outcries by State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss, the Airports Authority in October employed 829 workers who were related to at least one other employee, an increase of 111 family members from five months earlier, Lindenstrauss said Friday. Speaking at a weekend conference sponsored by the Netanya Academic College and the Israel Forum of Law and Society, at Neveh Ilan, near Jerusalem, Lindenstrauss referred to the situation at the Airports Authority as an example of how difficult the battle against corruption in public service is. He announced that within the next month, he would be bringing to the Knesset an affair involving a public servant who misappropriated large sums of money. He refused to provide details such as the name of the public servant who appears to be suspected of administrative, rather than criminal, misconduct. Lindenstrauss also said that he would publish three reports on the government's handling of the disengagement in early January. Prior to that, at the end of December, he is due to issue the annual report on administration in the local authorities - his first. He said his annual reports would be shorter than the 1,000-page tomes that have been released by the state comptroller in the past. Lindenstrauss reiterated that the main thrust of his seven-year tenure, which began a few months ago, will be the battle against corruption in the public sector. In order to wage a more effective campaign against this phenomenon, he said he established a special unit headed by the former commander of the Northern Police District, Ya'acov Borowsky. The unit currently employs 10 workers.