Fire Hollander, watchdog group demands [p.4]

By DAN IZENBERG
The Movement for Quality Government on Monday called for the dismissal of Civil Service Commissioner Ya'acov Hollander in a petition to the High Court of Justice. Hollander's performance was sharply criticized in the recent annual report published by State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss, who found that most public tenders for civil service jobs were conducted unfairly and because he found that Hollander had allegedly promoted his personal assistant, Edna Alfassi, in violation of Civil Service regulations. The MQG, represented by attorneys Shraga Eliad, Zroya Medad-Luzon and Daphna Kiran-Cohen, charged that "during his years in office, the problems and the findings of the comptroller regarding his failed tenure as Civil Service Commissioner returned, repeated themselves and multiplied. The fact that he proved to be a serial ignorer of the comptroller's findings about his performance, while demonstrating gross disregard for the officials carrying out the examinations, their findings and the aggregate damage caused by his failure to repair the problems is graver still." At press time, Hollander had not replied to the charges included in the petition. At the time, Hollander made headlines not only because of Lindenstrauss's harsh findings, but because Hollander publicly defended himself by publicly attacking the state comptroller. On April 3, more than a month before the State Comptroller's Report was released, Hollander wrote him a harshly worded letter, which was published in the media on the eve of the report's publication. "The overwhelming majority of the report is unprofessional, tendentious and full of factual and legal mistakes," charged Hollander. He said that senior employees in his office had received the impression that officials in Lindenstrauss's office were out to get him personally. After the State Comptroller's Report was published on May 9, the storm died down, although the two clashed again during a meeting of the Knesset State Audit Committee less than two weeks later. Now, it is likely to erupt again.