Last update - 00:00 05/09/2006
MK Sneh: Labor will combat treasury's 'Bibiist' privatization plan
By Ruth Sinai, Haaretz Correspondent
MK Ephraim Sneh (Labor) on Tuesday criticized the Finance Ministry's decision to privatize all government assets related to unemployment and disability services, saying the treasury was following the economic ideology of former finance minister and opposition leader MK Benjamin Netanyahu.
"The treasury has again proven that it is guided by the Bibiist ideology, even though Bibi is no longer there," Sneh said, referring to Netanyahu's nickname.
The Finance Ministry has decided on a bargain-basement sale of all of the state's assets dealing with the unemployed and the disabled, according to the 2007 Economic Arrangements Bill.
According to Sneh, the Labor Party will not allow these clauses to pass as part of the Economic Arrangements Bill in Knesset.
"We unequivocally object to the privatization of social services," he added. "Once these services become a business, the citizens become victims. It stands in complete opposition to our world views, and it will not pass within the Economic Arrangements Bill."
In the section of the bill entitled "services in the Social Affairs Ministry residential homes," the treasury proposes transferring to non-governmental hands nine institutions for the developmentally disabled, housing 2,000 people; two institutions for the physically disabled, housing 100; and three foster institutions for 110 youth at risk. A total of 1,300 workers are employed by the state in these institutions.
The treasury says the cost of maintaining a ward of the state in a government institution is 50 percent higher than in a non-governmental institution, though the quality of care is much better in the latter, according to the treasury.
The treasury also proposed raising the age from which unemployment benefits are handed out from 20 to 28. Unemployed individuals with children will be able to receive unemployment benefits from the age of 20.
The treasury has also proposed returning the Prisoner Rehabilitation Authority to the Social Affairs Ministry, from which it emerged 20 years ago, citing its failure to produce impressive results.
Seven government vocational training centers are also to close down, according to the Economic Arrangements Bill, and courses for training of builders, electricians and others transferred to employers and to private schools.
In reaction, a labor leader on the staff of one of the centers said, "It's too expensive. No employer will give 800 kilos of electrodes for a course, the way we do for six months." He pointed out that after building courses were transferred to the Contractors Association, they were closed down. "Private schools want to earn money, and many people can't afford to study at them," the staffer said.
The Trade, Industry and Employment Ministry has announced its opposition to the center closures. "The ministry believes that at a time like this, vocational training should be expanded, especially in the technological professions," it said in a statement.
The ministry's budget for vocational training is in any case to be reduced, according to the treasury's plan to channel 85 percent of it into the training of Israeli workers in construction and agriculture, part of an effort to replace foreign workers.