Matanyahu Englman

Mordechai Matanyahu Engelman was born in Rehovot to Hasia (daughter of Yehuda Kiel) and Benjamin Engelman, a physicist at the Soreq Nuclear Research Center, a former Technion faculty member and founder of the Master's Program in Physics at Tel Aviv University.

Engelman is a graduate of Netiv Meir High School and Yeshivat Har Etzion. In the IDF, he served in the Armored Corps as a tank commander.

Engelman holds a bachelor's degree in economics and accounting and a master's degree in business administration, both with honors from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Before being elected by the Knesset to the State Comptroller position in June 2019,[1] he served as CEO for the Council for Higher Education in Israel. Before that, during 2014-2018, he was the CEO of the Technion. He is the first non-judge to be elected to the oversight role in over three decades and is considered as having a less-activist, more conservative approach to the position.[2] A favourite of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he succeeded over the other State Comptroller candidate, Giora Romm.

In preparation for the submission of his first reports on December 31, 2019, Engelman presented a change in the format of summaries of state audit reports. According to it, the auditor's reports will be presented to the public in a new and more accessible format. Instead of a text saturated with more than 20 pages, which sometimes made it difficult to understand the report and explain the auditor's shortcomings and recommendations in the report, the summary will include only an average of one and a half pages and focus on the ten main findings at the core of the report. In addition, the abstract will include "key data" and extensive use of infographics that will summarize the audit findings into key numbers and data.[3]

In 2020, the State Comptroller published 111 audit reports, in March, May, July, August and October. These reports incorporated financial audits and conducted an annual audit of the State's financial statements.[4][5] In addition, a cyber and information systems division was established to develop audit capabilities regarding the readiness of state authorities for strategic threats and significant risks to which they may be exposed.[6]

State Comptroller Netanyahu Engelman visits the climate exhibition at the Tel Aviv University Science Museum

The special audit report on the National Climate Action by the Government of Israel, was submitted by State Comptroller, Matanyahu Engelman, to the Knesset and presented to the public at October 2021, in preparation for the 2021 United Nations Climate Change conference (COP26), scheduled to meet in early November 2021.[7]

Born in Rehovot, his mother Hasia, was the daughter of educator Yehuda Kiel, while his father, Benjamin Englman was a physicist who worked in the Soreq Nuclear Research Center. A bookkeeper by profession, Englman is married with six children. He and his wife, Esther Abigail (the daughter of Moshe Mendelbaum, former governor of the Bank of Israel), both reside in Nof Ayalon.