The Parliament has reported Liadal to the Police
The Norwegian Parliament asks the police to investigate whether Hege Haukeland Liadal (Labour) has abused the travel expense scheme. Party leader of Labour, Jonas Gahr Støre, believes that the matter is serious.
“We have gone through this serious matter. We are now asking the police to initiate investigations to clarify what has happened. We will then also know whether there is a basis for prosecution,” Director of The Norwegian Parliament, Marianne Andreassen, states.
The Administration of the Norwegian Parliament reported the case to Oslo Police District on Thursday. Liadal is informed about this.
Important that we react
“We rely on the trust of our voters, and every Member of Parliament must deserve that trust. It is important that we react when it seems that someone may have abused the system,” Andreassen continues.
“This is a serious matter, whether conscious or not. I understand that The Norwegian Parliament has asked the police to investigate the matter further,” Leader of Labour, Jonas Gahr Støre, comments.
“We, the elected representatives, are dependant on the trust of the voters. The scheme regarding travel bills is based on trust between the representatives and the Norwegian Parliament, and breaches of the regulations are unacceptable. This is now a police matter and we must now await its investigation,” he continues.
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Overbilling of NOK 500,000
From January 2017 to October 2018, Liadal provided travel bills totalling NOK 500,000 to The Norwegian Parliament. On Tuesday, Aftenposten revealed that she demanded more than NOK 60,000 for travel expenses where she was somewhere else than what she stated.
At the same time, Liadal has consistently reported too many kilometres between Oslo and her hometown, Haugesund. She says she always thought that it was 600 km between the cities and that she has rounded down. The factual distance is about 460 km.
Liadal admits the error of her ways
The Labour representative has acknowledged that she has provided travel expenses for trips that she never made.
She explains in part that planned trips have been cancelled and that she has delivered bills with incorrect dates. She adds that it can be difficult to understand the travel billing system. Further that «It’s not everything that is merely obvious, always»
Liadal landed Thursday morning at Gardermoen after having been on a delegation trip to a meeting of the Interparliamentary Union (IPU) in Qatar. From there she went on to Oslo and The Norwegian Parliament, where she had to explain herself to the administration thereof.
© NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today
