Immediately after Transportation Minister Miri Regev signed a generous agreement with the Ashkelon Municipality for investment in complementary transportation in the city amounting to hundreds of millions of shekels, the mayor, Tomer Glam, came to the Ministry of Transportation. Glam, one of the minister’s favorites, had a new demand: to finance the renovation of three additional streets in the city because the ministry had already committed to paving bike paths there. The expected response was: no chance, it’s not the ministry’s role, the municipality should fund it. But the ministry agreed to the demand, and the work was assigned to the "Netivei Israel" company.
In one of the streets, a contractor working on behalf of the Ashkelon Economic Company—who does not work with Netivei Israel—had already begun work. Therefore, the company had to hire a contractor who is not supposed to work for it to renovate internal streets in Ashkelon. (Netivei Israel’s response: no extra budget. After administrative and legal review, it was decided to absorb the agreement made between the contractor and the Ashkelon Economic Company.)
Regev would not have been able to accomplish many of the things we uncovered without the "enablers"—execution professionals from the technical level who bend, go with the flow, survive, and push out good and advancing people. Like Nissim Peretz, CEO of Netivei Israel, who softened his backbone and went along with the minister’s whims. Without him, Regev would hardly have been able to get anything moving. But it’s not just him.
For years, the city was governed by Mayor Rahamim Malul, supported by Likud, so streets associated with him were marked green in Regev’s traffic light tables. At some point, Likud member Matan Dill decided to run against Malul. Immediately, streets and Malul’s status changed. Now they must be avoided. Shortly before the city elections, something unusual happened: the Ministry of Transportation’s CEO, Avner Flor, and a senior official from Netivei Israel came to visit Dill, not Malul. Dill filmed them with him and said in the video that they promised him an important road the city had wanted for years. Dill bluntly used the Ministry of Transportation officials to signal to residents: want a road? Vote Likud. Why did Flor cooperate? For the same reason he agreed to serve as Ministry of Transportation CEO, when in practice the ministry is run by Regev’s political man, Moshe Ben Zaken.
The promotion of people like Flor pushed out: Shai Kedem, head of the Planning and Infrastructure Administration; Ran Shadmi, director of the National Public Transportation Authority, who understood there was no point wasting time in a ministry subordinate to Regev and Flor; Avi Naor, chairman of the National Road Safety Authority; Haim Glick, CEO of NTA, and others. But many other senior officials decided to play it safe, close their eyes, and wait it out. For example, the ministry’s legal advisor.
However, the reason most of Regev’s plans failed to materialize comes down to two reasons. First, her and her team’s ability to execute is close to zero. Second, there are officials who did not fold and did not allow it. This cost them sleepless nights, struggles, and anxiety, but they are the last barrier between us and a completely rotten state.
Response from Ashkelon Municipality:
"The professional staff at the Ashkelon Municipality maintain regular contact with the professional staff at the Ministry of Transportation in order to improve and streamline the city’s road and transportation system for the benefit of the residents. We add that despite this, all Israeli governments, throughout the generations, have yet to close the gaps towards the city of Ashkelon and its residents, even as they demonstrate resilience and steadfastness that inspire admiration."