The state comptroller of Israel has released a report blasting the spending habits of Bibi during his term of office as Prime Minister. Both he and his wife were found to have engaged in lavish spending in the upkeep of both the official residence as well as his private residence and could result in criminal charges being filed.
The LA Times reports that spending
....often far exceeded necessity, formal budgets and good taste. In addition, the report pointed to improprieties in management of finances, human resources and external contractors.
When Netanyahu took office in 2009, expenses at both residences totaled roughly a half-million dollars a year. By 2011, that had roughly doubled before dropping to about $600,000 in 2013. Food and hosting expenses alone started out at about $55,000 and more than doubled to about $125,000 in 2011. After a modest cut in expenses the following year, expenses for 2013 dropped to near the 2009 level.
Cleaning both residences came with a particularly high price tag: an monthly average of about $20,000 between 2009 and 2013, including more than $2,000 a month for the Caesarea house, which was usually empty. Shapira found this spending “significantly exaggerated.”
About $20,000 a year was spent to order meal deliveries, despite employing an in-house cook. These and other expenses, Shapira wrote, were “not compatible with the basic principles of proportionality, reasonability, economy and efficiency.”
Given this report comes out barely a month before national elections, I am most hopeful this will be a nail in the political coffin of Bibi the bozo allowing for a progressive coalition to come to power and reverse the years of corrupt conservative power.
Recent polls show Likud locked in a tight race for Knesset control with the progressive slate of Zionist Union leading by one seat.
A channel 2 poll published Monday gave Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni’s Zionist Union 25 Knesset seats, one more than Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, which received 24.
The poll, conducted by the Midgam polling firm among 700 respondents with a 3.5% margin of error, found that the Joint (Arab) List would gain 12 seats, making it the third largest Knesset party.
The Joint Arab List has stated they will not join any new government but would be willing to consider helping block Bibi regain the Prime Minister
post.
While the Joint (Arab) List will definitely not join the next government, it may decide to form an obstructive bloc with the Zionist Union to prevent incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from forming the coalition, a senior lawmaker with the faction said on Tuesday.
A decision on whether to help block Bibi will be made after the election results.