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Treasury: No time like now to stop pay party
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Ilan Levin, the public sector wages director at the Finance Ministry, rejects the Israel Electric Corporation's contention that the start of negotiations about restructuring the government monopoly isn't the time to get picky about pay excesses. Levin insists his job is to eradicate improper pay practices, wherever he finds them. "I see no place to suspend implementation of my decision to stop the pay irregularities at the Electric Corporation," he said. A month ago, Levin told the IEC to immediately stop excess pay, which totals NIS 175 million a year. The management asked that he suspend his decision. Levin noted that the original treasury decision to stop the pay party was issued in August 2006, rendering it all the more irrelevant to the timing of the negotiations. (Avi Bar-Eli)

Ampa thinks timing is right to sell homes

The Ampa Group is offering 30 apartments for sale in the Central Park project next to Tel Aviv neighborhood Bitzaron. A purchasing group of hundreds of high-tech workers bought 320 apartments two years ago. Ampa, the original landowner, kept 30 apartments for itself as part of the deal, and gambled on now as the perfect time to put the apartments on the market. The apartments on the 21st through 30th floors are going for NIS 16,000 to NIS 17,000 per square meter, Ampa reports, and it has been inundated with more than a hundred potential buyers since the firm's management decided to put them on the market two days ago. The apartments were offered only to residents of the building, who were asked to recommend their family and friends in order to maintain its ambiance, the company says. (Guy Liberman)

Car thieves go after rental cars

Car thieves are multiplying, if not quite like rabbits. Statistics for the first half of 2009, from vehicle locating company Pointer, show a 15% increase in the number of thieves operating in Israel. The thing is that the sector of car thieves has learned to steal from fleets of rental cars rather than individual owners and to forge papers for the cars. The system starts with actually renting the target vehicle, learning its immobilizer code and duplicating its keys. The car is returned to the leasing company and then stolen with ease. It is then sold locally with the help of the forged documents. The most popular item among thieves remains the humble pickup truck. Almost a quarter of all stolen vehicles belongs to that category. (Daniel Schmil)

Lawyer, surgeon colluded to defraud NII

A lawyer and a surgeon have been convicted of defrauding the National Insurance Institute by filing false claims. The NII became suspicious, consulted with the police and hired a private investigator, who contacted the lawyer, Daniel Barel, and told him she'd fallen into a hole on her way to work and wanted to sue the NII even though she was unharmed. Barel took the bait. A third defendant, realtor Ophir Barzilai, falsified pay slips for her while the doctor, Eliahu Tal, supplied mendacious medical documents, recommending she receive disability support. Barel coached her on reenacting the "accident." In another scam, Barel also coached his secretary on how to enter a grocery, find an object in disrepair such as a shopping cart and stage a mishap. He also coached her on her behavior in hospital, and later how to defraud the NII. She and Barel took in NIS 9,000. (Amit Benaroia)

PMO gearing up to launch minorities' fund

The Prime Minister's Office and the Finance Ministry have finalized the terms of a $160 million fund for investment in the Arab sector and plan to launch the initiative within days, says Iman Saif, director of the Authority for the Economic Development of the Arab, Druze and Circassian Sectors in the PMO. Avishay Braverman, who sports the rather shorter title of minister of minorities, says the government will be providing half the money while private enterprise is supposed to provide the other half. The fund will be run by a private body that is said to have the best potential to support the portfolio companies. (Ora Coren)
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