Not long after IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Gadi Eizenkott announced the military’s five-year fiscal recuperation plan, to build a streamlined, efficient modern military, State Comptroller Yosef Shapira blasts the IDF for poor fiscal management.

On Wednesday, at the special cabinet meeting to accept the 2015-2016 the only minister to abstain was Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, who is not coming to terms with the treasury’s plan to cut more from the defense budget. However, according to the state comptroller, it may not be all about money, but gross mismanagement.

Shapira explains the military has not met target goals set by the Brodet Committee back in 2007 and while the IDF has sharply cut training and preparedness, it has increased the permanent military apparatus. Shapira cites the failures of the senior command to audit the changes demanded by the Brodet Committee.

Based on the Brodet plan, the IDF was to cut its spending 1% annually for a decade (NIS 30 billion) but in fact, when Shapira’s office probed today’s reality, it was learned from 2008-2012 less than half was cut and while the IDF should have cut NIS 10 billion, it cut NIS 3.8 billion. The lack of fiscal management is blamed for having to cut the defense budget today by the State Comptroller’s Office.

Shapira adds that decisions made by the IDF chief of staff in 2011-2012 along with Defense Ministry officials to streamline the Ministry of Defense Tank Program Directorate and the Administration for the Development of Weapons and Technological Infrastructure had not been implemented. It simply was not done.

Adding to the woes of IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Gadi Eizenkott, who has only been in office for a few months, not only did the IDF not reduce the numbers of the permanent army in 2008-2013, that number increased during this time period by 9%. In addition, in line with the plan presented at the end of 2012, the military was to cut 4,000 positions annually while hiring 1,000 new employees for “essential” position. This too was not done.

Therefore, Shapira points out that instead of reducing the size of the permanent army, in the five year period beginning in 2008, the military grew by 9%.

The State Comptroller wrote, “The situation described indicates an absence of proper command and control over the economizing process on the part of the senior echelon in the defense establishment, which has caused, among other things, failure to achieve the expected cost cutting in the maintenance sector” Globes reports.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)