The Civil Service Commissioner, Prof. Daniel Hershkovitz, today (Sunday) received the recommendation of the Exceptions Committee, according to which at this time the position of Director General of the Ministry of Finance should be elected from among civil servants. Because in view of the need to ensure the functional continuity of the Ministry of Finance, it is not possible to recommend the appointment of the next permanent Director General outside the civil service to the Ministry of Finance, during the election period.
As stated, before the Exceptions Committee, Finance Minister Katz’s application to the Civil Service Commissioner was submitted, according to which the Minister seeks to promote the permanent appointment of Mr. Oded Shamir to the position of Director General of the Ministry of Finance, during the election period.
“Although a minister may appoint a CEO at his discretion, subject to the candidate’s qualifications as well as terminating his term, noting that this is a personal appointment of the minister, replacing a CEO during an election period may result in government instability and malfunction of the ministry. “Yes, in general, changes in the positions of CEOs during the election period should be avoided,” the exceptions committee recommended.
They added that “there will be room to appoint, as a rule, a senior civil servant as the acting CEO. The Attorney General’s directive also stipulates that in exceptional cases in which it will be appropriate to appoint a permanent CEO and not be satisfied with the appointment of a deputy, it will be appropriate to prefer the appointment of a CEO from among civil servants. This is in order to reduce the damage to the proper functioning of the ministry as well as its stability during the election period. “
As mentioned, Katz fired two weeks ago the acting director general of the Ministry of Finance, Eran Yaakov, who also serves as director of the Tax Authority, and announced his intention to appoint Oded Shamir as deputy director general of the ministry, replacing Eran Yaakov.