News

By Ruth Sinai "Haaretz", May 01, 2003


Thousands Get Work Visas By 'Mistake'

In July 2001, 60 Chinese laborers arrived in Israel to work for a construction company. In November, Interior Ministry records indicate the 60 left the country and the contractor was permitted to import another 60 workers. The state comptroller found that the original group never left Israel and the contractor essentially received permits to bring in 120 Chinese laborers. "The concern arises that Interior Ministry data was altered, not according to Border Police reports," the state comptroller's report states. The information was transmitted to the attorney general and the Interior Ministry administration, which called the police on the matter.

This is just one of hundreds of deficiencies the state comptroller's office found with the allocation of foreign labor permits. The problems allegedly led to the issuance of thousands of unnecessary permits and to a substantial increase in the number of foreign workers in Israel. The comptroller describes the cabinet decision to increase foreign worker quotas due to lobbying by pressure groups and how bureaucratic red tape served the groups' interests.

Nonetheless, despite the severity of the findings, only one or two cases include suspicions of criminal activity. "The financial temptation inherent in the permit system led to exploitation of the administrative system to expand the employment of foreign labor. The supervision, regulation, enforcement and control mechanisms did not manage to efficiently handle the phenomenon and the administrative method failed," the state comptroller writes.

In May 1997, the cabinet decided to reduce the number of foreign workers in Israel to 1 percent of the total workforce - 52,000 - by the end of 2002. The number estimated by the Foreign Labor Administration was in practice 10 times higher, at 552,000 foreign laborers.

The comptroller identified three principal reasons for the problem:

Illegal $1,300-3,000 commissions agencies collect from workers, leading them to file more employment requests than necessary.

  • Lack of computerization and coordination between authorities handling work permits.
  • Lack of Employment Service controls over data reported by contractors and farmers.
  • The problems led to work permits for already constructed projects, for projects that did not have building permits, and for unverified farmer reports of planned harvests.
The spokeswoman for the Employment Service, Batia Koress, said, "The deficiencies the comptroller correctly points out, have been corrected since mid-2002." She said the director or deputy director of the permit allocation department now examines every file. Projects larger than 20,000 square meters are double-checked and the employer is summoned to personally verify the data. Only then is the file submitted for debate in the allocation committee and all allocations receive the final approval of the service's director general, Avner Oferi.