JERUSALEM, 2 March 2007 — Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was yesterday accused of unlawfully appointing scores of political cronies from his former Likud party in the latest scandal to mar his beleaguered leadership.
The allegations were sparked when private Channel 10 television revealed a document drawn up by Olmert aides listing dozens of appointments they arranged for party members when he was trade and industry minister from 2003 to 2006.
The more than 100 alleged fixed jobs include senior positions in public bodies, such as local councils and the postal authority, which require open competition at public tender.
“Every week or two, I would be summoned to the minister’s office... During these meetings I got a list of people who they wanted appointed to the postal service,” Avi Moskovitch, a former senior postal official, told army radio. During meetings with Olmert’s senior aide, Oved Yehezkel, “we would receive instructions from the minister’s office and they expected us to carry them out,” he added.
“Yehezkel claimed all along that these were requests from the prime minister (Olmert),” he alleged, accusing him of asking for the jobs to be fixed “even if it was necessary to replace” members of the tender committee.
One of Olmert’s closest aides, Yehezkel today acts as a senior political adviser to the premier, who already faces a criminal probe over his alleged abuse of influence in the privatization of Israel’s second-largest bank.
Olmert quit the Likud party in November 2005 for the centrist Kadima party, created by former mentor and coma-stricken Ariel Sharon. The state comptroller’s office, the government watchdog, said no decision has yet been made to open a probe into the report.
