This week (7-11.5.2023) the Knesset State Control Committee discussed the findings highlighted by the State Comptroller in several reports published the past year - and asked the representatives of the audited bodies to describe which measures they are taken in order to rectify the defects that the Comptroller had warned about.
This month the State Comptroller published a report on the dairy industry in Israel. Yuval Hayu, Director of the Government Ministries and Institutions Audit Division, and members of the audit team, Etiel Malachi and Yoel Fox from Department P in the Division, presented the report's findings. The Comptroller found, among other things, that the Israeli consumers are consistently paying for one liter of milk 77% more than the price paid for it in Europe; that contrary to the undertaking given by Israel to the World Trade Organization, it is still indirectly supporting the dairy manufacturers much more than in the OECD countries; and that approximately 20% of the cowsheds in Israel are in a very dire state from the cows' welfare aspect.
In November 2022, following the affair of the pimping of female prison guards in the Gilboa Prison, the State Comptroller published a report which examined how much the male and female soldiers serving in the units of the Ministry of National Security are protected against harassment and sexual assaults. Yuval Hayu presented the report's findings to the Knesset (9.5) alongside the staff of the audit team: the Director of Department F in the Division, Inbal Maliach, Hila Orr, Ofir Giladi-Kavia and Elad Schild.
The audit, which was presented at a joint discussion held by the State Control Committee and the Knesset Committee on the Status of Women, found that one in every four female soldiers serving in the Israel Prison Service, the Israel Police and the Israel Border Police testified that they had been sexually assaulted. In the Israel Prison Service alone this had happened to 4 in every 10 female soldiers. 70% of the assaults on the mandatory service soldiers were committed by career soldiers or commanders. The report further revealed figures which had arisen in an IDF survey and which showed that one in every three female soldiers testified that she had suffered sexual harassment during the course of her military service.
The Knesset State Audit Committee also discussed the report which examined the care of toddlers in day-care centers and nurseries (9.5). The Comptroller was represented at the discussion by Benny Goldman, Director of Department P in the Social Welfare Audit Division, and Michal Ronen, Director of Department D in the Office of the Ombudsman. Goldman presented the figures from the May 2022 report to the Knesset members, which showed that during 2019 50% of the carers in the subsidized day-care centers had already left their jobs during the first year. The Comptroller also found that one in two carers had no formal training - and that at least 20 years were required in order to train all the carers in accordance with the law. Furthermore, in 2021 there were more than one thousand private day-care centers which were unsupervised. "Many families of a low socioeconomic status can't send their children to a day-care center or a nursery", Goldman emphasized.