Shortly before the closing of the coalition negotiations, we requested from the Attorney General that he remind the party heads of the regulations that he implemented with regards to all matters concerning the signing of agreements which have budgetary ramifications.

As we recently witnessed with the alleged ‘Yisrael Beiteinu’ scandal, the establishment of acceptable norms for members of Knesset, members of the government and other ranking officials in matters concerning spending coalition funds is imperative. This is part of the fight to eliminate inappropriate and corrupt behavior amongst governmental officials and to ensure an ethical and quality government in Israel.

We recently turned to the Attorney General and commended him for the important efforts he has made to draw conclusions from the instances of corruption that are currently being investigated. The implementation of important new regulations of all matters concerning the signing of coalition agreements which have budgetary ramifications is an important step in our fight against corruption and reinforcement of oversight and transparency.

We sent the Attorney General a detailed letter in which we spelled out a list of suggestions for how to best strengthen and sharpen the current regulations. Our first suggestion was to update the regulation that does not require disclosure of budget funds which are transferred as a result of coalition agreements. Additionally we requested that party chairmen be required to verify that the coalition agreements represent their entire party and is in its name, that no oral agreements be made without a written record and that all agreements be organized and presented in an accessible and transparent manner on an online site in order to enable proper public transparency. We also suggested that specially designated mechanisms be put into place to enable maximum oversight to ensure that the allocated funds are not misused.

In light of the great public significance of this issue and due to the diminishing timeframe for the formation of a coalition, we requested a timely response to our suggestions.