Shas Candidate Disqualified for Claiming Five Years of Experience at Company Founded in 2025

The Water Authority disqualified the appointment of Meir Pinchas as CEO of the Bnei Brak water corporation after the appointments committee found discrepancies in his declarations about managerial experience. Pinchas, a political adviser for Shas, claimed five years of management at companies founded only in 2023 and 2025. The corporation has been without a permanent CEO since January 2025, and the Bnei Brak municipality owes it about 30 million shekels.

The Water Authority disqualified the appointment of Meir Pinchas as CEO of the Bnei Brak water corporation 'Mei Brak' after the appointments committee found a series of discrepancies in his declarations about his managerial experience. Pinchas, a political adviser for Shas, claimed five years of experience as CEO of Efrem IP Entrepreneurship, even though the company was founded only in June 2023, and management of the company Eretz Avot, founded in April 2025. The committee ruled that this constitutes 'incomprehensible conduct, to say the least.' The disqualification comes at a sensitive time: the corporation has been without a permanent CEO since January 2025, and the Bnei Brak municipality, the shareholder, owes it about 30 million shekels – a debt that grew from about 8 million shekels in the 2022 reports and threatens its financial stability. The committee also criticized the corporation's board, stating that the difficulties should have been clarified during the search process. In response, Pinchas said he meets all the threshold conditions, and that Efrem began its business activity already in 2020 as a licensed dealer. The municipality said the debt is part of ongoing accounting and is not a bad debt.