The Labor and Welfare Ministry has come to an agreement with the Finance Ministry that an additional budget for NIS 12.5 million will be allocated toward ensuring food security for poor families, until the end of the year.
This is a pilot scheme and the total of NIS 20 million already allocated toward the program will remain separate from the basic Welfare budget. In February, the Welfare Ministry reached an agreement with the Treasury regarding the extension of the program until May; now, due to the intervention of the new Welfare Minister, Itzik Shmuli, the program has been extended until the end of the current year.
"Poor families are the last people who should be forced to pay the price [of the economic crisis]," Shmuli said. "I am delighted that we were able to obtain the required budget allowance in order to ensure the continuation of this program until the end of the year, after months of uncertainty. We should never have a situation where children go hungry because we couldn't locate sources of funding for them. What we should be doing now is anchoring the new budget in legislation so that it becomes a permanent item in our expenditures."