The Directorate of Immigration will cut its budget next year by almost 25 per cent.
According to the government’s budget proposal, the Directorate of Immigration’s budget will be cut by NOK 668 million to NOK 2.01 billion in 2019. A large proportion of this is reduced costs of state asylum reception centres. The post is cut by NOK 407.5 million compared with this year.
UDI has estimated that around 3,000 asylum seekers will come to the country next year and that on average there will be 2,560 people at reception centres around the country in 2019. By the end of August, there were 37 asylum reception centres in Norway.
UDI’s budget has been greatly reduced in recent years. In 2016 the directorate had a budget of 7.88 billion. That was the year after 30,000 asylum seekers came to Norway. Since then, the number of asylum cases has fallen sharply, and the budget was reduced to NOK 4.28 billion in 2017.
By the end of September this year, 2,464 persons had applied for asylum in Norway, according to UDI’s statistics.
The Immigration Board has also reduced its budget by NOK 25 million down to NOK 297.6 million. The reason is that the board is expected to process fewer cases.
© NTB scanpix / #Norway Today
