The annual cost of asylum reception has plummeted by 5.5 billion from 2016 to 2020, projections show in next year’s budget. Now another “super reception/supermottak” is being closed down.
The savings are the result of a “tight asylum and immigration policy,” according to Frp leader and finance minister Siv Jensen.
This is money that we can now spend on better elderly care, more teachers, nurses, daycare workers or less tolls and new roads, she tells NTB.
Estimates in the asylum and immigration area in next year’s state budget show that Norway, in 2016, which was a peak year after the massive refugee influx in autumn 2015, spent just under NOK 6.4 billion on asylum reception. Expenditure for the year is estimated at just over NOK 1 billion, while the government’s forecast for next year is NOK 892 million.
The backdrop is that the number of asylum seekers coming to Norway is at its lowest level since 1997. For the first time in 21 years, there are less than 3,000 people at asylum reception centres in Norway.
In the autumn of 2016, the government launched so-called integration centres to get asylum seekers more quickly integrated, giving them the nickname “super reception.” But the integration reception in Oslo has already been closed down, and such reception is now disappearing in Larvik.
The closure of the integration reception in Larvik shows that the government’s policy works, says Justice Minister Jøran Kallmyr (Frp) to NTB.
The government’s state budget proposal for 2020 will be presented on October 7th.
© NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today
