Benjamin Netanyahu
Photo: Dana Kopel
New Netanyahu election campaign finance irregularities uncovered
New data on Likud’s 2015 election campaign uncovered by party’s ombudsman Shai Galili reveal irregularities and mishandling of campaign funds may have permeated Prime Minister Netanyahu's campaign, as Galili's investigation sheds light on some troubling omissions and abnormalities.
A new report by the Likud ombudsman, attorney Shai Galili, sheds light on several alleged cases of party funds mishandling and misuse during Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's 2015 election campaign.
In just one such case, Galili discovered that a company that provided cleaning, maintenance and security services for the Prime Minister's party during the last election has seemingly produced fictitious invoices, providing no actual services for the party and receiving NIS 686,878 in payments.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Photo: Amil Salman)
"Under these circumstances, in which the campaign leased the services of a business at such an exaggerated sum of money for providing human-recourse services without an actual contract or even minimal documentation for actually providing said services, suspicions arise that these were fictitious expenditures," said Galili.
This is just the tip of the iceberg, though, as the attorney's report shows how Netanyahu managed to compartmentalize senior ministers and MKs and form an alternative faction run by his close associates, like his campaign manager Shlomo Filber who is now the director general of the Communications Ministry. Others inculded his aide and spokesman Nir Hefetz who served as the Likud party media spokesman in the last election campaign, and his aide, personal lawyer, relative and close confidant David Shomron.
It further shows that beyond an unauthorized deviation in the Likud's budget of about NIS 8 million which was previously discovered by Galili, the actual salaries of the people working for the Likud's election campaign ranged from 12 to 109 thousand shekels—even though no work documentation was found for some of them.
"I did not find anything that could prove this wasn't a fictitious expenditure," said Galili. "This raises the question of whether the omission of documentation for the work of these employees was caused by some outside interest or as a method to create a framework for fictitious employment as a covert expenditure to benefit (Netanyahu's) close associates."
Among the main beneficiaries of the campaign were: Avi Halevi, a legal consultant, who was paid 767,000 shekels; Avi Yehudayoff, an accountant, who was paid 826,000 shekels; Aron Shaviv, a strategic adviser, who was paid 413,000 shekels; Shlomo Filber, the campaign staff manager, who was paid 300,000 shekels; Nir Hefetz, the campaign's media spokesman, who was paid 296,000 shekels; Yossi Druck, a staff organizer, who was paid 230,000 shekels.
Netanyahu during the 2015 campaign: 'it's us or them' (Photo: Amit Shabi)
Though Galili emphasized that the salaries of Filber and Hefetz were "within reason," he claimed that Hefetz's employment did have a serious fault, one in the form of a conflict of interest due to the fact that Hefetz was also personally employed by Netanyahu at the time.
Although Hefetz refused to respond to these claims, Galili ruled that because the spokesman "provided full details on his activities within the campaign," and following his resignation from his position in the party, he has no personal accusations against him.
However, when Galili begam going over the salaries of the campaign's paid activists, even more questions were raised. For instance, the manager for the campaign activities in Haifa received a salary of 10,620—but the recipient in his invoice was listed as a business, one named "Grandpa Marco's Bagel Shop."
Another example is a junior coordinator employed by the campaign, who's invoice listed her as a "certified mentor."
In another case, Galili found that the campaign's branch in Hof HaCarmel Regional Council employed eight paid activists who have the same surname.
Furthermore, a law firm employed by the campaign received 29,500 shekels for legal counsel, but Galili found that, in practice, the money was paid for something else entirely. "It turned out that the firm provided services directly to Netanyahu and his wife as part of the PM's residence expenditures affair," he concluded.
Galili then found that, after the elections, the campaign decided to hand out hundreds of thousands of shekels in "bonuses" to its employees. As far as Galili is concerned, "increasing the budget and salaries only due to the successful results of the election is a fictitious expenditure."
A senior official in the Likud's election campaign responded that "in contrast to the cursory examination made by the Likud ombudsman, the Likud's campaign budget was thoroughly checked by an accounting firm appointed by the state comptroller as part of the routine oversight on campaign financing, which found that the Likud's campaign spending was impeccable."
(Translated & edited by Lior Mor)
