During Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's tenure as minister of industry, trade and labor his office "systematically breached protocol" in pressing for government funding to "Aquaria," a tourism project that did not prove its economic feasibility, according to a report released Wednesday by State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss.
Cabinet secretary Ovad Yehezkel.
Photo: Ariel Jerozolimski
"Olmert intervened both directly and via his assistants in the...'Aquaria' issue in a manner that can be construed as...an application of pressure by the minister," Lindenstrauss writes in the report on the project, which according to plans was to be built just north of Eilat by entrepreneur Ran Peker.
The report goes on to state that the venture received extensive support from the Israel Land Administration (ILA), the Tourism Ministry and the Interior Ministry and was inappropriately promoted through the actions of Cabinet Secretary Oved Yehezkel - then Olmert's assistant - and then cabinet secretary Avigdor Yitzhaki.
Originally the brainchild of a group of US industrialists who hired Peker to promote the project in Israel, the "Aquaria" complex in Kibutz Eilot was to include theme parks, a golf course, convention center and amphitheater.
According to Lindenstrauss's report, most of the inquiries made by the Industrial Development Bank of Israel and advisers from Israel and abroad at the behest of the Tourism Ministry and the ILA between 2004 and 2007 showed that the project was economically unfeasible. Nevertheless, the Tourism Ministry continued to promote "Aquaria," and by August 2007, the venture was approved and the state had agreed to an allocation of NIS 30 million to help fund it.
The report states that in 2003 Olmert asked Yehezkel to write a letter to an American bank requesting additional funds for "Aquaria" - despite the fact that the government had yet to clarify its stance on the project.
The comptroller also found that the feasibility inquiries underestimated by tens of million of shekels the expenses that were to be incurred by the entrepreneurs, including the prohibitive price of land and development. Ultimately, the report states, the results of the inquiries were skewed in favor of the project.
In March of 2007, Olmert baldly told The Jerusalem Post that State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss is out to get him, prompting the latter to respond that "a person should not be judged in his moment of sorrow."
Olmert, referring to Lindenstrauss's various inquiries, characterized them as the "creations of a very tortured imagination of a person who set out for himself the target to remove the prime minister, on a personal basis. This is what we are talking about. He said this is his mission: To hit me. Like an asteroid."
Lindenstrauss, asked for a response, told the Post there was nothing personal in his inquiries, and that he was acting in strict accordance with the powers granted to the state comptroller under the law.
Herb Keinon and David Horovitz contributed to this report.
Iran news 
Français 
Русский 
