Southern development towns: Failed mayors or an overly strict ministry? Haaretz September 5, 2007 By Mijal Grinberg Last week Ofakim became the third development town in the Negev to have its mayor and city council removed by the Interior Ministry, and is now being run by a caretaker city government. Soon Mitzpeh Ramon is expected to join this not-so-exclusive club of municipalities who have seen their elected officials kicked out for poor management by the ministry, and have had a new, appointed mayor in their stead. But the ousted mayors claim that the way the ministry has chosen to deal with their cities' problems ignores the unique issues facing them. A week ago, the director general of the Interior Ministry, Arye Bar, notified the mayor of Ofakim, Avi Asraf, that he and his city council were fired for "an operational and budgetary failure, non-implementation of a rehabilitation plan and hiring and firing employees illegally." The ministry took similar steps in Yeruham two years ago and in Arad only two weeks ago. The mayor of Mitzpeh Ramon, Flora Shoshan, will face the same fate if she does not manage to approve the 2007 municipal budget by next month. And in Sderot, another Negev development town in the news every day, Mayor Eli Moyal announced the start of an unlimited leave of absence yesterday as a result of a police investigation against him over financial irregularities. "Appointing a caretaker committee and an appointed mayor is not a trivial thing," Bar said. "It is the last solution we implement, because after all we are a democratic country. But we are unable to allow substandard functioning to continue and have the state bear responsibility." Asraf, who took office as the mayor of the 26,000 person town in 2003, is actually proud that he has managed to shrink the city's deficit during his term. He did it by implementing a rehabilitation plan that included cutbacks and laying off workers. But the Interior Ministry removed him due to "hiring and firing workers illegally" as part of his efficiency measures. For example, Asraf explains that in order to reduce the deficit he decided that the 140 sanitation and maintenance workers in Ofakim would be employed by the city-controlled economic corporation, and not via manpower contractors. This move brought a slew of accusations from his opponents that the move was meant to allow the mayor to fire workers and appoint his cronies in their place - a serious matter in a town with a high unemployment rate. The complaints against Asraf never turned into indictments and the cases were closed by the police. But as a result of the accusations, the Interior Ministry forced him to stop employing workers through the city-owned corporation, claiming that such employment practices violated tax laws. However, Asraf claims that the ministry's demands increased costs by hundreds of thousands of shekels. The ministry also claims some of the ousted mayors did not act to increase the collection of unpaid city taxes and fees. Bar admitted that this was not the case in Ofakim, where Asraf claims he actually increased collection rates - no mean feat in a city where a third of the population is exempt from property taxes due to their economic situation. "They do not understand that the problems here are deeply rooted," Asraf said. "They are based on past mistakes." "Some of the mayors have not internalized the fact that they are public servants who need to be professional and honest," Bar said. "The job of a municipal council head is to manage a public government without any political tendencies. A mayor who cannot do so must leave his post."