Last update - 02:19 07/10/2007
Business in Brief
Approval of Zelekha's ouster postponed
Finance Minister Roni Bar-On will not ask the cabinet to approve this morning the appointment of Shuki Oren to replace Yaron Zelekha as accountant general. The cabinet discussion has been postponed to next Sunday's meeting at the request of State Comptroller Micha Lindenstraus. Lindenstraus notified the treasury that due to the Sukkot holiday, he had not yet fully addressed the attempt to oust Zelekha, and therefore asked the cabinet to delay its decision. Oren is scheduled to take office on October 19, and there will be adequate time to approve the appointment next week, the treasury says. (Moti Bassok)
Official extradition request for Yonah
The State Attorney's International Division presented a request for the extradition of former Heftsiba CEO Boaz Yonah to the Italian government last week. Yonah will be charged in Israel with aggravated fraud and forging corporate documents, theft, money laundering and violations of securities laws. He is suspected of fraudulently receiving over NIS 300 million, and the charges relating to forgery of corporate documents cover more than NIS 1 billion. It seems that Yonah and his associates hid their actions by keeping a second, fraudulent set of books. The request was submitted a week before the Italian deadline, and now the official extradition process will start. (Yuval Yoaz)
The gravy gets richer for politicians
The president, speaker of the Knesset, MKs and judges are expected to receive salary raises of 3.6 percent. The prime minister, ministers, state comptroller, governor of the Bank of Israel and deputy ministers will receive increases of only 2.6 percent. Why the discrimination? The wages of first group is linked to the average wage and updated once a year on January 1. The second group also has salaries updated every year, but its members are linked to the Consumer Price Index. This is not the first time that the average wage has outpaced the CPI. The average wage has risen about 2 percent a year more than the CPI in recent years. Shimon Peres' new salary should be NIS 47,944 a month in January. (Zvi Zrahiya)