Netanyahu and wife Sara not listed as suspects in likely investigation, which follows damning State Comptroller report
State prosecutors have decided to initiate a criminal investigation of the Prime Minister’s Residence over multiple alleged irregularities, including in the hiring of contractors, that were first raised in a February report by State Comptroller Yosef Shapira, Channel 10 reported Tuesday.
Neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nor his wife Sara are suspects in the investigation, according to officials.
The decision to launch the investigation must be approved by Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein.
The February report found multiple alleged irregularities, including in the hiring of electrician Avi Fahima, a Likud Central Committee member. A committee charged with overseeing residence expenditures, and which included the Prime Minister’s Office legal adviser, ruled against the hiring of Fahima, but he was hired anyway, noted the Channel 10 report.
The investigation will focus on mid-level officials at the PMO, including deputy director general for operations Ezra Saidof.
In the Fahima case, the comptroller report criticized Sara Netanyahu for ordering the electrician’s services at public expense without any external audit of the need for those services or any confirmation that they were carried out.
For several months in 2010, the comptroller found, Fahima did not produce receipts for his labors, and allegedly received fees far higher than those that appeared in his initial cost estimates.
The report on the residence’s expenditures came out in the midst of an election campaign. It found that the residence operated for years without an audited budget, and raised questions about the use of public funds, which were spent on, among other things, the upkeep of the Netanyahus’ pool at their private Caesaria home.
The report also noted that beginning in 2013, when criticism led to heightened awareness of the issue among the prime minister’s staff, a systematic, audited budget was instituted and expenditures declined precipitously.
As reported by The Times of Israel