A damning official report into spending by the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, at his official residence in Jerusalem and private seaside home has accused him of excessive and improper use of public funds, including spending huge amounts on takeaway food, hairdressing and cleaning..
Prepared by Israel’s state comptroller, Yosef Shapira – and passed to the country’s attorney general to consider whether any laws have been broken – the report is potentially highly damaging to Netanyahu, coming only a month before Israel’s elections.
The government auditor’s report appears to confirm allegations that have been rumbling for several years of excessive spending by Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, and a lack of proper management of the costs in the prime minister’s official home.
It has come on top of lurid allegations, detailed in a civil court case, of the high-handed and abusive treatment of staff in the official residence by Sara – claims strongly denied by the Netanyahus.
What has made the issue potentially politically toxic in the middle of an election campaign – where Netanyahu is running neck and neck with his main rivals – is the sharp contrast it has afforded to Israelis suffering under a high cost of living.
The claims of potential illegal conduct centre on two issues: the so called “bottle-gate affair”, which saw Sara Netanyahu pocket deposits on bottles of drinks paid for by the state, later reimbursed; and claims that garden furniture bought for the official residence was sent to their private home.
Among spending items criticised in the report is a bill to the Israeli state for more than $18,000 (£11,700) for takeaway meals in a single year, despite the fact that the Netanyahus are provided with a cook and staff at the government’s expense.
Another expenditure highlighted was the cost of cleaning for Netanyahu’s private home in the upmarket beach resort of Caesarea. It cost the Israeli state $2,120 a month – more than the monthly income of many Israelis – despite the fact that the Netanyahus spend the majority of their time at the official residence in Jerusalem.
Netanyahu was also criticised for excessive spending on a raft of other items including hairdressing, clothes, water consumption and electrical repairs made at the taxpayer’s expense at his private home.
The official examination of the expenses – incurred between 2009-13 – showed that cleaning costs claimed at the Netanyahus’ two residences doubled without explanation from an already hefty $138,000 in 2009 at the official residence alone.
Perhaps most damaging of all is the revelation that employees of the prime minister’s office were obliged to pay for some of Netanyahu’s personal expenses out of their own pockets – often small sums and not reimbursed.
“The meaning of a failure to pay back these invoices from petty cash is that employees absorb the cost of private expenditures of the prime minister or his family,” the comptroller wrote in his report. “When an employee is forced to pay from his own pocket for an expenditure by the prime minister, this is improper administration and it makes no difference whether the sum is large or small.”
In a scathing assessment, Shapira concluded: “The way in which the budget of the prime minister’s residence was managed during the years 2009 until 2012 does not comply with the basic principles of money management, saving and efficiency and is likely to result in a waste of public funds.”
One of the murkier episodes detailed in the report relates to the employment of an electrician who was a member of Netanyahu’s own Likud party, and who, because of that, was not authorised to do state-funded work at their private home.
The report noted that nobody examined the need for the work – which continued for three months – and there was no examination of whether the work was actually performed, as everything was coordinated between Sara Netanyahu or one of her staff.
Replying to the report’s findings, Netanyahu’s party issued a statement saying that while Netanyahu respected “the findings … in relation to all the matters which were investigated … there is absolutely no indication of any assault on the public’s integrity and certainly no indication of any criminal transgressions.”
The statement added: “A large portion of the recommendations in the report were implemented even prior to its release. The prime minister has issued a directive to implement the remaining recommendations in the best and most effective manner possible.”
Discussion of the lifestyle enjoyed by the Netanyahus has become one of the longest-running soap operas in Israeli media and politics, both taking a star turn in the court cases brought by former staff – who have complained of Sara Netanyahu’s alleged abusive behaviour and tantrums.
Condemned as “evil gossip” by the couple, the saga has prompted thinly veiled comparisons over the last year between Sara and Marie Antoinette and arch digs at the imperial pretensions of Bibi, as the prime minister is nicknamed.
The controversy has been exacerbated by the Netanyahus’ own efforts in recent days to pre-empt the report.
Those efforts saw them invite television celebrity interior designer Moshik Galamin (a friend of the couple) to inspect their official residence on the eve of the report’s publication, with Galamin videoed as he was shown round by Sara. The tour was then posted on the prime minister’s Facebook page.
The video purports to depict run-down furnishings, peeling paint and a grotty kitchen, which Galamin declares looks “like the kitchen of a Romanian orphanage from 1954”.
“The moment you come here at night, you’ll catch the prime minister on this chair snacking on all sorts of forbidden things, like a sandwich or yellow cheese,” Sara tells the designer, in what appears to be an attempt to reinforce an image of him as an ordinary guy. “The dish we like best is schnitzel and mashed potatoes and pasta!”
The problem – as the reports in Israel’s media have extensively charged – is that the video appears to have been disingenuous at the very least.
The kitchen featured in Galamin’s video, say critics, is the general kitchen of the residence where employees take their meals, apparently infrequently used by the prime minister.
The Netanyahus’ own kitchen – not shown in the video but later displayed on Israeli television – is reportedly a newly renovated affair located on another floor.
The Labour MP Shelly Yachimovich, who has in the past called on Israel’s media to leave off Sara Netanyahu, was scathing ahead of publication.
Describing the video as “pathetic” and “ridiculous”, she accused Netanyahu of “cowardice” for putting his wife forward to deflect the heat. “He passed responsibility to his wife ... He put her in centre-stage saying: ‘I’m off to work, Sara will show you the house, that’s her kingdom.’ Beyond the chauvinistic aspect, this was done with the next day’s state comptroller’s report in mind, to create the alibi of ‘it’s not me, it’s her’.”
“Ultimately,” she added, “we look [to] our leaders, we want them to lead their people, not live like emperors, disconnected completely from the lives of ordinary people.”