(Ha'aretz) Danny Rubinstein - The troubles will begin when the Hamas cabinet begins to take action - transferring money, firing workers, and appointing new ones. A Hamas review of the PA bureaucracy indicates that nearly 60,000 people (out of more than 150,000) who receive salaries are not actually workers. Salaried non-workers include the wives of senior Fatah officials who sit at home and get the salaries of directors-general. Some 20,000 armed youths, who are members of Fatah militias, receive salaries but do not belong to the security services. Thousands of people who receive salaries are not even located here. They left for Jordan, Tunisia or Egypt, but no one has stopped paying them. The Hamas government must deal with this, and when they start implementing reforms and firing people, the real crisis is likely to begin.
2006-03-27 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive