July 3rd, 2007
Press release

The Municipality of Sachnin has pledged to rectify several instances of fundamental mismanagement, following appeal by the Movement for Quality Government in Israel

After MQG's letter to the mayor of Sachnin, its city council and its supervisor of freedom of information, following a report on local government operation during the 2006 fiscal year issued by the department of local government auditing in the Ministry of Interior that revealed several instances of fundamental mismanagement, MQG welcomes Sachnin's agreement to some of MQG's demands.

Regarding the fiscal reports, the municipality undertook to conduct a hearing on the fiscal report, after avoiding such a hearing for years. The movement emphasizes that municipal hearings are an important part of the mechanism for reviewing local government administration. For instance, it allows local citizens to track illegal spending, budget irregularities, or resolutions that cause financial damage to the local authority. Continual tracking of municipal expenses also allows elected representatives to make inquiries and ensure that the mayor carries out his fiscal responsibilities. Such hearings were avoided by the mayor for years, and proper review of the financial statements was thus impossible. Moreover, municipal actions require financial hearings in order to ensure proper administration, and failing to hold such hearings is illegal.
On another equally important subject, the municipality pledged to repair the malfunctions regarding the legal counsel's required approval of all contracts signed by the municipality. The municipality has been breaking the law for years by failing to bring many of its contracts before the municipal legal counsel for approval. In the letter, the municipality commits to rectify this malfunction starting in 2007, and to act only according to the law, and bring all its contracts for municipal legal counsel approval. MQG indicates that the amount spent by the municipality on contracts is a major part of its total budget, reaching millions of NIS. Thus, the rectification of this malfunction will bring the situation of unregulated spending of tens of millions of NIS in recent years, to an end.