Next week the finance committee will meet to discuss the cost of living in the Amir. The largest companies in the economy, the marketing chains, the electric company, the water company and the various government ministries will be invited to the discussion. This evening (Saturday), the incoming chairman of the finance committee, Knesset member Moshe Gafni, revealed that his bill to freeze interest rates on mortgages is underway.
“The country cannot stand on the side of someone whose life is more expensive”
“On Monday, I will put on the Knesset’s table the bill to freeze interest on mortgages for first-time home buyers,” he said in the “Meet the Press” studio, and estimated that the majority of committee members would support his bill, which he defined as “important.”
“I passed a law that the monetary committee of the Bank of Israel sets the interest rate, and the politicians cannot interfere and I am not going back. But the state cannot stand by when there is a cost to life,” Gafni explained the bill. “The meaning of the proposal is that the interest rate increase will not apply to those who qualify for a mortgage according to the parameters of the Ministry of Housing, and if there is no legal possibility to do so, the state will subsidize its price increase.”
It is not clear if there is even a possibility of a bill that would actually interfere with the various banks in mortgage pricing. Gafni emphasized that this would not be possible and the state would be the one to subsidize the increase in mortgage prices for those eligible according to the Ministry of Housing. Also, as of this evening, it is not at all clear which strata of the population the bill addresses.