Bennett Defends Expenditures on Home in Ra’anana

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s office released an itemized list of expenditures on his home in Ra’anana on Sunday to refute a Channel 13 report that alleged exorbitant spending.

Bennett’s office stated that outlays at his home (for cleaning, workers, and food) amounts to NIS 87,700 ($26,890) a month, compared to NIS 280,000 ($86,000) that were spent monthly at former Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s two residences in Yerushalayim and Caesarea.

The PMO said that it welcomes the media’s coverage of the matter “so long as facts and truth are the basis, and that there is not a cynical use of the media platform.”

Netanyahu’s Likud party dismissed Bennett’s response out of hand, saying that “as usual, Bennett lies and the media covers up” for him.

Likud charged that Bennett renovated his Ra’anana home “at the expense of the public for the astronomical sum of 50 million shekels, without authorization and in violation of the law.

“The law determines that the prime minister’s official residence be in Yerushalayim, not Ra’anana. As opposed to the official Yerushalayim residence, the private one in Ra’anana is not used for official receptions, such that all spending on food are for him personally,” the Likud charged.