Scandals in the Støre government: Lack of Control, Temptations, and the Society of Trust

In the wake of the Støre government’s many scandalous departures, the Norwegian media are on the hunt.

Some have already raised their voices and claimed that there can be too much of a good thing, that the pursuit of small mistakes and old sins can scare talented people away from politics.

And that Norwegian society is not served by only “perfect” people being able to become elected officials and top leaders.

I see the point, but disagree.

On the contrary, recent revelations show that we have probably been too naive. That the Norwegian trust society, which we so often brag about, has made the temptations too great. Or attracted to the wrong kind of people.

Because the myth about Norway, the cardamom country, unfortunately turns out not to be true.

That is why it is good that large parts of the Norwegian press have clearly had blood on their teeth. And it’s good that we have a public disclosure act like Justice Minister Emilie Enger Mehl’s anyway chose not to limit last autumn, following pressure from, among others, the press organisations.

Because there seems to be a bit to take off, also when the trip has now come to state companies and public organisations.

For example, Dagens Næringsliv could tell on Wednesday that digitization director Cathrine Mørch in Statsbygg, with responsibility for large, gigantic projects, is a co-owner in a startup which will sell – yes, you guessed it, digital solutions for the construction industry.

She can do that, despite the fact that she recently launched a separate service where the entire industry and entrepreneurs were encouraged to share their best ideas with Statsbygg.

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Obos director critical of Statsbygg directors being allowed to run companies privately

No one has accused her of having stolen other people’s ideas, or of using the knowledge she has acquired in Statsbygg in an inappropriate manner in private. But the opportunity is there, and Obos director Daniel Siraj tells the newspaper that such a practice is incompatible with working for them.

Obos’ top managers must focus on their job, not their own business on the side.

Then we have the former trusted leader of Norsk Industri, Stein Lier Hansen, who shows up to have spent millions of kroner on “relationship activities” at a hunting lodge on Hardangervidda.

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Everyone around them knew

Stein Lier-Hansen is one of the most powerful bosses in the NHO system, and here it is E24 that has led the way in the revelations.

One of the most piquant details so far is that parliamentary representative Eva-May Botten (Ap) was told by Lier-Hansen to be on “influence work” for the good of Norsk Industri’s member companies.

Botten herself has explained that she was there on a private visit, partly because she knows Lier-Hansen’s wife.

Without comparison otherwise, Nettavisen and the local newspaper Firda have in recent weeks written about the new minister Oddmund Hoel (Sp) in the Ministry of Education and Higher Education.

Here there are old accusations of extensive membership fraud in Norsk Målungdom which are the case, but still circumstances that qualified for prison sentences at the time they were committed.

Hoel himself has admitted that the membership numbers were deliberately inflated in order to sneak in state subsidies, but were saved by the gong – that is, when the cases were finally investigated by the police, the offenses committed during Hoel’s leadership were obsolete.

Hoel himself defends himself by saying that “everyone else did it”.

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The half-truths can trap him

Many will probably say that it is unfair to single out Oddmund Hoel in a case like this, since the offenses occurred over 30 years ago.

It is still not Hoel that I feel most sorry for here, but rather digitization director Cathrine Mørch at Statsbygg. No one has accused her of either breaking the law or other inappropriate conditions.

She still has to come to terms with being singled out as an example of a slipping practice, and because it shows an attitude and a pattern of action that repeats itself. Which is about a slightly too comfortable relationship with rules, excessive trust or a lack of control, and which for outsiders leads to the following three questions:

• Why on earth is it okay for a digitization director in a leading state company with several billion in turnover to be allowed to set up his own company to sell digital services to others?
• Why on earth is it okay for a director of the largest employers’ organization in the country to operate as a private hunting and hotel host for years without anyone checking his cards?
• And why on earth is it okay for a prime minister, when he learns that a cabinet candidate has engaged in extensive membership fraud, to appoint him anyway – without telling anyone else about it?

Many have probably heard of that civil servant in the old days, the one who had two inkwells on his desk: One for normal, daily work. The other for private letters, paid for by himself.

No one wants to return to such a petimeter regime. But today, the daily media reports show that we have gone too far the other way.

In the introduction I wrote that the lack of control routines and the cultivation of the trust society may have attracted a type of people with intentions to exploit it. I still don’t think it’s the most common.

Read more comments by Erik Stephansen

I rather believe that the lack of routines have made it too tempting for otherwise honorable people to step over the line. An apartment makes a thief, goes the old saying – and I think that still applies.

Therefore, today’s almost daily press reports are not about the fact that we are in danger of scaring away decent people from taking on tasks either as elected officials or leaders.

It is about a necessary clean-up in the control routines in order to be able to maintain the society of trust.

In this way, it can actually become easier for ordinary, honorable people not to make mistakes when they take on trust-based tasks for the community.

2024-02-15 06:48:36


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