Sara Netanyahu to be questioned by police
Prime minister's wife is suspected of using taxpayer money to buy garden furniture for family's private residence, using electrician the PM was barred from employing due to personal ties, and paying for her late father's care with state funds.
Mrs. Netanyahu is suspected of ordering that the expenses of the Netanyahu family's private Residence in Caesarea be funded by the state.
Mrs. Netanyahu is suspected of hiring electrician Avi Fahima, a member of the Likud center and a close associate of the Netanyahu couple, to do electricity work in the family's private Caesarea residence. He habitually arrived at the Netanyahu family's private home almost every weekend for three months and was paid using tapayer money.
She is also suspected of purchasing new garden furniture for the official Prime Minister's Residence in Jerusalem, but moving them to the Caesarea home, while sending the old garden furniture from the Caesarea home to the Jerusalem resident.
Investigators will also look into suspicions that Mrs. Netanyahu used taxpayer money to pay for her late father's care while he was living at the official Jerusalem residence, and that she ordered employees at the Jerusalem home to list more guests than were actually hosted. In some cases, Mrs. Netanyahu is suspected of producing false invoices.
The Netanyahu family denied the suspicions attributed to Mrs. Netanyahu and said in response that "the claims against the prime minister's wife are baseless and imaginary, and this will be clearly proven."
Police investigators have already questioned Avi Fahima and from the PMO deputy director general Ezra Seidoff, who has been put on a forced leave of absence several months ago. Seidoff also denied all suspicions against him.
Excessive spending at the Prime Minister's residence
The decision to question the prime minister's wife was made following the State Comptroller's report released in February.
The State Comptroller's report reveals that the Netanyahu family spent excessive funds at the public's expense. For example, the funds for food doubled to half a million shekel in a year. The cleaning and clothing expenses were also excessive, according to the report.
The probe also reveals that employees of the Prime Minister's Residence on Balfour Street in Jerusalem personally financed Netanyahu's expenses and never received reimbursements.
The report by the State Comptroller reveals that the total expenditure of the Prime Minister's Residence in 2009 stood at NIS 1,860,000. In 2010, the spending rose to NIS 2,400,000 and in 2011 the spending reached a record NIS 3,114,000 – almost two times as much as the Prime Minister's spending in 2009. In 2012, the spending slightly decreased to NIS 2,864,000 and in 2013 the spending further decreased to NIS 2,410,000 – although the total expenditure was still higher than the spending in 2009.
The state comptroller's report revealed that in 2011 and 2012 the expenditure on food and hospitality more than doubled compared to the expenditure on food and hospitality during the first year of Netanyahu's second term. The spending rose from NIS 211,000 in 2009 to NIS 490,000 in 2011. The spending then decreased to NIS 458,000 in 2012 and a year later there was a significant decrease in the spending on food and hospitality to NIS 226,000 in 2013.
The prime minister can use state funds for a private electrician if it is a pressing situation that occurs during the weekend, a holiday or after work hours and cannot wait to be fixed during regular work hours.
According to the state comptroller's report, the Financial Committee decided that Netanyahu could not employ a private electrician whom he had employed in the past because he was previously a member of the Likud Center. The report mentions that the employee, referred to as electrician E. in the report, had hosted the Netanyahu family for the Mimuna celebrations in Passover of 2010.
Despite the decision by the committee to ban Netanyahu from employing Fahima using state funds, "he was contracted to do electrical work at the private residence. It was done under false pretenses in which it appeared that a different contractor was brought in, however, in reality electrician E. did the work as a subcontractor."
The report revealed that after examining the situation, the State Comptroller found that the Prime Minister's wife, Sara Netanyahu, or one of her secretaries had ordered the electrical work from the prohibited electrician.
According to the report, Sara or one of her secretaries made direct contact with the electrical company and requested work to be completed at the Netanyahu family's private home, using state funds.
The state comptroller noted that no one had examined the necessity for the work that was ordered and that there was no examination of whether the work was actually performed, as everything was coordinated between Sara Netanyahu or one of her secretaries.
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Yaron Druckman contributed to this report.
