MKs and Finance Ministry officials have reached consensus, and a law requiring the IDF to provide only “made in Israel” uniforms will be passed.
MK Moshe Gafni (United Torah Judaism), who chairs the Knesset Finance Committee, and committee member MK Shelly Yechimovitch (Labor) met today with Udi Nissan, the Finance Ministry’s Budget Director. By the end of the meeting, Nissan had retracted his opposition to the proposed bill, though he still demands that it be formulated in cooperation with the Ministry.
The bill requires all security forces – the IDF, Border Guard, and Israel Police – to acquire only “blue and white” textile products.
This past January, the IDF decided to purchase official IDF emblems from China, in accordance with regulations stating that a bid from the Israeli periphery must be accepted over any other bid unless the latter is 15%, or more, lower. In this case, the Chinese bid was 16.5% lower than that of Kibbutz Maayan Baruch in the north. A Maayan Baruch representative said at the time, “It was a difference of only 200,000 shekels – money which the State of Israel will now have to pay in unemployment for the workers that I will now have to fire…”
Shortly before that, Public Security Minister asked the Israel Prison Service to freeze a tender for prison service uniforms, in order to make it easier for Israeli firms to participate, and made a similar decision for Border Guard uniforms.
Aharonovitch’s office welcomed the agreement on the new law, saying, “There is no doubt that Israeli and Zionist work is more important than budgetary savings. Even if the law is based on free economic competition, it must also be based on realistic understanding of the social aspects of our economy. You can’t quantify down to decimal points thousands of good people who work hard all day.”