Finance Cmte. rejects NIS 2.6B defense budget cut
Knesset's Finance Committee denies Treasury's request to cut Defense Ministry's budget; cites poor preparatory work
The Knesset's Finance Committee rejected on Wednesday a bill calling for a NIS 2.6 billion (roughly $645 million) cut in the defense budget.
The motion was brought before the committee by the Treasury's Budgets Director Gal Hershkowitz, who said that the Treasury wants to reallocate the funds from the Defense Ministry to the State reserves.
The full details of the motion, he added, were given to the joint committee on the defense budget, which is comprised of Finance, Foreign and Defense ministries officials.
Committee Chairman MK Moshe Gafni (United Torah Judaism) refused to grant the motion, said that the Treasury failed to do the preparatory work necessary for such a request.
Ynet learned that the amount that the Treasury sought to cut was meant to be appropriated for the new IDF training base facilities in southern Israel and the procurement of new training aircraft.
These details, however, were not included in the brief submitted to the committee, which was apparently part of the reason it chose to reject the motion.
