Ministries forced to cut budget to help Holocaust survivors

Decision accepted following report criticizing the government for paying low pensions to survivors.

By SHELLY PAZ
holocaust survivors 248 88 aj (photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski [file])
holocaust survivors 248 88 aj
(photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski [file])
The Knesset Finance Committee approved on Monday a three percent budget cut to be taken from the budgets of all government ministries, which, along with the 2008 budget surplus, will help finance pension payments to Holocaust survivors. The cuts, along with the surplus, will allow the government to divert a total of NIS 760 million, a third of which will be directed to the Holocaust survivors' payments. According to Ram Belinkov, the national budget director in the Finance Ministry, the cuts were made from specific budget items, such as the president's travel budget and the fund for shielding Gaza-belt settlements. "We have searched to cut back from places that have not spent their 2008 budgets, without hurting the weak segments of the population." A majority of nine committee MKs was in favor of diverting the NIS 760 million, three MKs opposed. The decision was accepted following a report presented to the committee by former Supreme Court judge Dalia Dorner criticizing the government for paying low pensions to Holocaust survivors, resulting in terrible health and welfare conditions for many of them. The cuts consist of such items as an NIS 1.6m. cut to the Gaza-belt fortifications, NIS 400,000 cut from the president's NIS 4m. travel budget, and NIS 3m. cut from the Pensioner Affairs Ministry. "The budget cuts are minor and they will not influence the budget of the Social Affairs Ministry. Half of the sum comes from the surplus of the 2008 budget," Belinkov added. Alon Shuster, chairman of the Sha'ar HaNegev Local Council, said in response: "It takes NIS 500 million-600 million to solve the security problem of the Gaza-belt towns, according to the Home Front Command and the Defense Ministry. We have no problem to spare NIS 1.5 million for the benefit of the Holocaust survivors as long as the government starts doing what has to be done - and the sooner the better," he said. Opposing MKs described the decision as "a cynical use of the Holocaust survivors by the Finance Ministry." "It is wrong to take the Holocaust survivors and us as hostages and then to come and wave this list in our face," Kadima MK Ze'ev Elkin said. MK Yitzhak Galanti (Gil), said he was forced to vote for the budget by the Finance Ministry's maneuvering. "The Treasury forced us to vote for the cutback so the budget for the Holocaust survivors would be approved." MK Reuven Rivlin, (Likud), said the cutback was essential. "As someone who believes the Jewish people owes a great deal to those persecuted by the Nazis, it is fair to cut across the board so as to provide for them," he said. Finance Committee Chairman, MK Avishay Braverman, (Labor), said: "As I promised, the funding for the Holocaust survivors' pensions was approved. The survivors will not have to know another day of shortage." Separately on Monday, the Parliamentary Inquiry Committee on the Claims Commission gathered for the first time. The special parliamentary committee will investigate the financial conduct of the Claims Commission, an American non-profit organization that monitors the German government's compensation payments to Holocaust survivors around the world. MK Ophir Pines-Paz, who initiated the establishment of the Inquiry Committee, said: "For 56 years the work of the Claims Commission was not supervised by anyone, which was wrong and inappropriate. It is time to thoroughly discuss its functioning and structure, and it is better late than never." Pensioner Affairs Minister Rafi Eitan recommended that the structure of the Commission's General Assembly must be changed. He added several more suggestions: To transfer some of the Claims Commission's activity to Israel, to change its internal regulations, to appoint a new president and to prepare a perennial plan for external supervision of the commission. The commission has not had a president for over two years. Judge Dorner said: "the governments of Israel used the Claims Commission for many years as their own cash box, while it should have been the bank of needy survivors."