More Resignations Coming in Finance Ministry

The state of Israel has no budget, and soon it will have no Budget Department either.

Two senior officials in the Budget Department of the Finance Ministry are about to quit their jobs, according to sources quoted by Ynet on Tuesday night.

The report follows by just a few days the resignation of the Ministry’s deputy director-general and deputy accountant-general, who both said they couldn’t any longer take the government’s handling of budgetary matters, making decisions based on politics rather than the professional assessments of the people who are leaving.

The Budget Department’s director, Shaul Meridor, loudly left while accusing Finance Minister Yisrael Katz of intentionally sabotaging his work at the ministry. Katz, in turn, accused Meridor of insubordination and defamation, threatening a lawsuit.

“There is no doubt that the difficult atmosphere at the ministry is causing people to leave,” said a senior source in the ministry. “There are many more older and younger officials who have decided to leave in recent weeks precisely because of this reason.”

The report named Deputy Director-General of Administration and Human Resources Ruti Ashkenazi, Deputy General-Accountant Nechemya Kind, Deputy Director of the Budget Department Ariel Yotzer, and Head of the Strategic Team at the Budget Department Dor Bloch, leading the list of the disaffected.