Honored outgoing Chairman of the IMC Benny Gaon,
Honored Chairman of the IMC Yossi Rosen,
CEO of the IMC Ms. Pnina Shenhav,
Dear Guests and Visitors,
I was going to start right with the subject this morning. There are several important matters that I wanted to say, but I feel that I cannot start this morning without saying something about certain things that were revealed, and are threatening to come back and affect the daily life of Israeli society. They were revealed yesterday in their most threatening ugliness. Yesterday, and truthfully contrary to my usual habit, I was busy at the Saban Forum conference, and missed the beginning of the football match between Maccabi Haifa and Beitar Jerusalem. But I did learn what transpired at its commencement. I want to say here in the clearest and angriest manner, that the behavior of, not a handful of fans as some would say, but a big, influential, noisy, and seditious team, was abominable and intolerable. I do not have to tell you; I believe that it is a well known item in my biography that I am a fan of the Beitar Jerusalem football team. I am a fan of the team and I loathe the rude, violent people who sadly, are a large portion of its fans.
We have already been there. We remember those days exactly 12 years ago; we remember the atmosphere that they created in the street; we remember the hatred that searched for justification, rationalization, and backing. But in the end, what it expressed was intolerance and a willingness to crush the basic infrastructure of democratic life in the State of Israel.
We will not let that happen again. We will fight with all our strength and with all our might, without compromise. Whoever is involved in this, there will always be groups in the population supporting it. I believe that the great majority of the State of Israel from the right and from the left, secular and religious, Jews and Arabs can no longer accept these expressions of slander, of defamation, of sedition and hatred that undermine our stability. I have also seen the posters with the image of the President of the State of Israel, Shimon Peres, wearing a keffiyeh. On the surface, it doesn’t seem much; but we know, that those who portray the President of the State of Israel wearing a keffiyeh want to say that the President of the State of Israel does not belong to us but to our enemies; does not represent us but our enemies, that he is not a partner to our struggle for the things that are important to the State of Israel, such as the fight with terrorism, and that G-d forbid, belongs to those that we should fight.
This is how it started then, with such posters, such pictures, and such disguises, and we thought that we were strong enough to continue onward and that nothing will happen. This defensive argument will not hold again for us, and so, I say here: we will fight these occurrences with zero tolerance. We will fight against every inciter; we will fight these expressions of enmity, and we will expunge them, because the State of Israel is a democratic, tolerant and strong State which is willing to face its tasks with courage, contrary to what these inciters are saying. And the State of Israel will be ready to make many painful concessions that will change the reality here; because above all else it wants security based on peace, and peace is made with concessions, and we all know that.
Benny: I want to say farewell and thank you for heading the IMC for so many years. Benny Gaon.
This morning I chose to speak of reform. The reform that is needed in the public service. That same reform that has been talked about for a long time. Governments change, priorities change, and sadly, things are pushed into the corner. I have been in the public service of the State of Israel, in various fields, for the past 35 years. I was a Member of Knesset, a Minister, a Mayor, and today I serve as Prime Minister. But all this experience is not needed to know that something is not working in the public systems and in the government in particular. A manager in the private sector usually knows what his responsibilities are. He knows what authority he is given to perform those responsibilities, and he knows what will happen should he fail to fulfill those expectations. Regrettably, this is not how it works in Israeli governments. We appoint CEOs in government offices, usually these are professionals who come out of a deep sense of mission, but they are not given the opportunity to shoulder the responsibilities given to them. We appoint division managers and heads of departments, but make sure that they cannot make any important decision without permission; we do not let them manage. It's easiest for us to say that they do not really know how to manage, that they are incompetent managers, but if so, then why did we appoint them? Why do we pay them a salary, and why, after they leave the government do they earn salaries that are much higher than other successful managers in the private sector, and are often guests of these organizations, as models of successful management.
For years, the system, especially the government, has built a thick layer of so-called gate-keepers, comptrollers, legal advisers, auditors, and others, to make sure that no mistake is being made. We impose more and more authorizations on our managers, and considerably lessen the amount of early inspection mechanisms on their decisions. We employ people who in the name of public interest hold considerable managerial authorities. These authorities for day-to-day management of the governmental system are supposed to be in the hands of those we choose to manage them. Do not misunderstand me, the public sector must be managed with transparency, equality, and with proper control. We are public servants, accountable to the public, and are required to give full account of every shekel we spend. We must check why a general manager in a governmental office must receive permission to change the definition of the role of one of his employees, in order that it conforms to the changing needs of the organization. Why does a general manager need permission in order to transfer funds inside a government office from one place to another? How can we expect this manager to take responsibility for his actions if we do not give him the authority for the most basic managerial actions?
This has ramifications. When there is no real authority left for the manager, he will not feel the weight of responsibility placed on him because there is always somebody else to shoulder it. A bad manager who does not fulfill his tasks should go home, as in any properly functioning firm; but in order to allow him to succeed in his position we must give him full authority with full responsibility; and responsibility is a very heavy burden, believe me. Especially, when the responsibilities are not just to shareholders, but to all the Israeli people.
I feel it daily. We have good managers and we have good employees, most of them with a great sense of purpose; and while they give us so much, they receive so little recognition and esteem. I am not just speaking of school teachers, but also of division managers and heads of units in the offices, who come home each evening at a time when many others are already sitting in their living rooms with their families. We need a profound change in the way the government functions in the State of Israel, we need a change that will ultimately result in a more qualitative working system; we need a government that works.
The question of authority and responsibility is part of a larger picture that concerns the world of government planning, budgeting processes, and a focus on performance. This is what we wish to change.
I will refer to several steps which we have taken this past year in the Prime Minister's Office, the head office that will lead the reform in the entire government. We have built and established three policy divisions in the office, each dealing in different areas. The National Security Council deals in security; the National Economic Council, headed by Prof. Trajtenberg, deals with economy and society; and the Policy Planning Department deals with matters of government. At the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem there is an entire floor that thinks and plans in parallel and in full cooperation with two other head offices: the Ministry of Finance, and the Ministry of Justice. These are departments that only yesterday submitted for approval by the Government, a plan in the billions for dealing with Holocaust survivors and the elderly poor. These are the departments that deal with the growth, the social gaps, the home front, children at risk, and many other matters that demand knowledge, understanding, and foresight. I will only mention that, in this regard, these departments were responsible for billions of shekels being added to the budget of the Ministry of Education this year; and that hundreds of millions of shekels were invested this year in dealing with children at risk.
For the first time in the history of the State of Israel, we have established a network dealing with children from birth to the age of six, and will open centers for holistic treatment throughout the country. There are 23 active centers as of this year, and 50 more are to be opened. All these are part of a general reform; its significance is that when the children reach first grade they will have a different level, different qualities, different potential, and different opportunities from those existing throughout all the years. This is something that the Government is doing as we speak. It is part of the great effort being made to change completely the educational system in the State of Israel. In the same manner it has decided and has allocated funds for the construction of 8000 new school rooms during the next five years, so that by the end of that period there will be no shortage of school rooms in the State of Israel. This too, is part of the reform being carried out in the education system. We invest, we donate, we construct.
Not by shouting, not by attacking verbally, not by clashing, not by dispute, but by hard work, budgeting, investment, and visits all across the State in order to do what must be done.
We found that in many cases there is no connection between planning and budgeting. Planning and budgeting are determined separately at different times. If you open the Government budget books you will find thousands of regulations, in part of which it is difficult to understand the connection between them and the Ministries work plans. Some will fault the budget department, I will not. I do not accept "Finance Boys" as being a derogatory term that many use, but as a term of admiration for a small, dedicated, talented, and intelligent group of people who do an excellent job. But the infrastructure of the organizational base and the government's view on management must be changed. The Government must set the frame, the Government must set the priorities, the Government must limit its direct involvement in the execution and pass the jurisdiction over the execution to external bodies that will know how to accomplish it more efficiently, better, faster, and more economically. We are also looking into the process of budgeting inside the governmental system, with the idea of enlarging the freedom of the Ministries significantly. The Ministry of Finance must set the priorities; the Ministry of Finance must set the frame; the Ministry of Finance is a head office that can certainly say: "This year we need to invest more in such infrastructures, and less in other matters that are associated with the development of certain services in comparison with the development of certain infrastructures." Only he who sees the entire picture of the whole system can propose priorities within the system in order to change the arrangement. But within the work of the Ministries, it cannot be possible that the Ministry that specializes in a certain matter will not be the one to set their internal priorities. If we decide that the Ministry of Transport is in charge of road development, and that it is their area of expertise, and that it has professional people and experts dealing with it, then this is the Ministry that needs to decide, within the framework set aside for transportation development out of the entire national expenditure, where it is done, how it is done, what the priorities are, what the schedule is, and which places take precedence over others. All this must be done as part of a joint effort in the whole system of Government, and in each relevant Ministry. That is how it should be done. That is not how we do it.
We have become enslaved, over the years, to outdated methods; and regrettably, during these past years we have built thick, untenable, bureaucratic layers that in effect paralyze the freedom to act, the freedom of thought, and the flexibility of the governmental system to a minimum. With one hand we built this bureaucracy, and we have built a whole culture of complaints against this bureaucracy that does not allow us to do what this State, this society, and those with managerial skills, can do. All this we are going to change in the framework of joint work that already exists in the governmental system. I believe it is a very important mission, and I believe it is something that we can do. I believe it is a mission we will accomplish during this Government's term.
Finally, I want to say something about education. I heard the words spoken in anger by people and I want to say this. As one who built 100 new schools in Jerusalem as Mayor, each year we would inaugurate 10 new schools in Jerusalem; as one who has enacted a revolution in the education system, in the education quarters and the registration sectors, and has changed the pattern of internal competition within the education quarters, and has significantly improved the education level of the schools, I say this, gentlemen: to improve the education system is to do two things: It is to invest a significant amount of money in improvement of the teachers salaries, and I want to tell you, gentlemen, that this year we have increased the teachers salaries as a part of the agreement with the Teachers Union by an average of 26% and in some cases by 34%. Never before has there been such an increase in the teachers salaries in Israel. We have done so, and this increase is offered also to the High School Teachers Union. This is a dramatic increase in salary. The basic salary which was a disgraceful NIS 2,800, was raised to the minimum of NIS 5,300. Some can come and say that 2,800 is nothing; 5,300 is nothing. The salary was nearly doubled. There was a dramatic change in salaries, but this is just one part of the process.
I do want to say, and there isn't a single person in this auditorium who will deny me, that it is about time that you too, should carry out a reform in your job, in the way that you conduct yourselves. What? You want us to settle accounts on this stage? What's wrong with you? We have an agreement with the Teachers Union that a school principal will have authorities he did not have previously, including the authority to fire teachers who do not fulfill the basic requirements of quality and competence. You agree to that? Go to your principals and tell them that along with an increase in salary, they should agree to a reform to better the quality of education, agree to changes in the way you are managed, agree to changes in the authorities of the school principals, agree to the changes in the quantity of classroom hours, agree to the changes in hours in which teachers sit with small groups and those that have learning disabilities. It's easy to appear before a crowd that doesn't know the details, and to behave, I would say, with a certain lack of restraint, that I would not have expected from teachers. I love you, so I forgive you. I always told the teachers and principals that sat with me in Jerusalem: your job is much harder than mine. I appreciate this work, but if we do not want to deal in slogans, and we want to talk honestly with ourselves, then I know that you deserve better and am willing to give. What you need to do, you cannot avoid. You need to change your ways, give the principals more authority, work with small groups of children with learning disabilities, stay longer at school, not come at eight and go at one. We send our children because we believe in you, we want you to stand the highest tests of ability, quality, and dedication, and you know full well, that this does not always happen. We are allowed to demand this alongside the salary increase. When the High School Teachers Union says that they are prepared to accept these reforms, the salary problem will be resolved entirely, because we are offering billions more in order to resolve that problem.
In the tolerance classes which I had at school, I learned to listen patiently even if someone breaks the rule of conduct. The State of Israel has this year signed an agreement with the Teachers Union, that represents 80,000 teachers, and the union said that it was an historic agreement, the likes of which have never been seen in the State of Israel, that encompassed a serious reform in the education system, including the addition of six billion shekels into the education system and teachers salaries. One organization said: "I will not join the negotiation, I will not negotiate. When they are done, I will try to get more." NIS 1,300,000,000 is waiting for the high school teachers in the 2008 budget as an addition to their salary, even without the teachers organization's willingness to sit and discuss a reform in the education system. I am all for an increase in salary, but I will say this to the teachers: an increase in salary, yes; but it is about time you carried out a reform with yourselves; do not moralize us. The problems with the education system are also the problems of the management of the system by those who are directly in charge of it, and are not prepared to reform; are not prepared to change their ways; are not prepared to have more classroom hours; are not prepared to sit with small groups. We are in favor of a reform in the education system, and we demand from the education system, including the High School Teachers Union to agree to the reform.
Thank you all.