Proposed Law: holding multiple ministries

MK Yoel Hasson (Hamachane Hatzioni) has proposed a law that will surely not pass, and is almost hypocritical in nature, based on where it is coming from, even though I think it is really a good proposal.

Hasson's proposal is that a Minister in the government would only be allowed to serve in one office, just one, at any given time. A Prime Minister, or any other minister, would be allowed to serve as a substitute minister in parallel ministries, though the Prime Minister cannot hold more than one ministerial position in addition to being PM, and not any of the major ministries - Defense, Finance, Foreign, Justice or Communications.

Hasson explains that nobody can effectively divide up his time between multiple ministries and do a good job. Meaning, holding multiple ministerial positions means causing damage to the ministries and subsequently to that aspect of society. In addition, there are at times conflict of interest between the different ministries and in a democratic country this leads to improper functioning of the government.
source: INN

On his Facebook page Hasson elaborated further. He points specifically to Netanyahu who, as he says, one day is the Minister of Education, the next day is Minister of Commerce and Trade, then for two months he is Minister of Regional Development, then Foreign Minister and Communications Minister. And once in a while in his spare time he functions as Prime Minister over the course of 7 years.

While technically the law should not have a chance to pass, as it is an Opposition proposal directly targeting Netanyahu, Hasson is holding out some hope that some Likudniks and people in Kulanu might have some integrity and support the bill.

I say it is somewhat hypocritical because Netanyahu is not the first PM to hold multiple ministries and positions. Yitzchak Rabin held more seats than Netanyahu at some points in his career, as did Ehud Barak. Hasson is not actually in the Labor party, but he is in Hatnua (formerly Kadima) which now sits in a bloc with Labor called Hamachane Hatzioni. So, it was ok for Labor to give its PMs multiple ministries, but when Netanyahu does it, at a lesser level, he cannot be functioning properly.

Anyways, I still don't even get why we need so many ministries, especially if they are not being managed full time by a dedicated minister. If a part time minister can do the job, we can probably afford to do away with the ministry entirely.

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