Chass education minister Haim Bitton is under investigation for allegedly using state funds to illegally fund a party-affiliated newspaper, KAN reported on Tuesday night.
KAN previously reported that the Shas newspaper Haderech was paying its employees with funds from the party’s Bnei Yosef school network, which is budgeted for by the Ministry of Education.
The central concern of the ongoing investigation is that public funds meant for the Ministry of Education were used to finance party-affiliated private newspapers during Mr. Bitton’s time as CEO of Education Network. That’s what happened.
Funding is said to have been raised in a variety of ways. One of these was through the salaries of employees of the paper’s former editor, Bnei Yosef. According to evidence cited by KAN, another suspected scheme involved circumventing transactions through printing companies serving Bnei Yosef.
KAN reported that Bnei Yosef offered to pay hundreds of thousands of shekels to stop the newspaper from funding it and publishing related documents. Haredi students study in yeshivas. (Credit: FLASH90/CHAIM GOLDBERG)
Financial difficulties in the Hadi education sector
These reports follow long-standing financial concerns about the Hadi education system.
Back in August, Education Minister Yoav Kish announced to the Knesset Board of Education a new regulation aimed at allowing salary increases for thousands of teachers in two major haredi elementary school systems, including Bnei Yosef. Submitted to. many important issues.
Following this, Israel’s Comptroller General Yari Rotenberg criticized Bnei Yosef’s financial conduct as flawed and in need of a major organizational overhaul.
Both Bnei Yosef and Chinuku Atmai (Independent Education), an organization primarily affiliated with Lithuania’s haredi sector and the Deger HaTorah party, have received more than 3 billion naira in state funding annually for the past few years. Each had characteristics in common with government agencies. – They are directly connected to government bank accounts and employ accountants appointed by the Ministry of Finance to run their finances.
This is said to have allowed them to avoid scrutiny and oversight of their financial handling.
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Eliav Breuer contributed to this report.
