Red wants to audit travel bills from all MPs

Leader of Red, Bjørnar Moxnes. Photo: Red

Red wants to audit travel bills from all Norwegian MPs

Bjørnar Moxnes (Red) calls for a complete audit of the travel expense claims of all Norwegian Members of Parliament. The party leader believes that all travel bills from after the 2017 general elections must be audited.


“The Norwegian Parliament must conduct an audit of all travel expenses for a period. We suggest from the election in 2017 and one year ahead, to bring everything into the open,” Party Leader of Red, Bjørnar Moxnes, tells NRK.

Aftenposten this week revealed that MP, Hege Haukeland Liadal (Labour), has demanded in excess of NOK 60,000 from the Norwegian Parliament for fictitious trips. Liadal has temporarily stepped down from all positions in the Labour Party and case responsibility for the party’s petroleum policy. The Parliament has reported Liadal to the police.

Many are now raising the question of whether MPs should not have their claims approved by others. Another pertinent question is why they need to travel to far away meetings and conferences quite so often – in light of available technical solutions. Liadal was, for example, on a trip to an interparliamentary conference in Qatar when her case broke.

Keshvari

MP Mazyar Keshvari (Progress Party) was reported to the police last year. The representative from Oslo was eventually charged with gross fraud. This after Aftenposten revealed that he had issued undocumented travel bills for a total of NOK 290,000. NOK 36,000 of this involved fictitious travels – where the newspaper could document that he had factually been in his hometown.

Moxnes believes it is important to find out if others have cheated with travel bills. This is to possibly clear the suspicion that he believes many are now directing at Members of Parliament.

“It will be time-consuming, but it may be a necessary cost to take on in order to restore confidence in the Norwegian Parliament. A trust, which for obvious reasons, is weakened out there,” Moxnes concludes.


© NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today
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1 Comment on "Red wants to audit travel bills from all MPs"

  1. Joakim Haugen | 13. April 2019 at 21:24 |

    Here Bjørnar is 100% correct as all MP’s (and former politicians who used their power to get a job in charity) abuse this.
    Sadly only Frp and Høyre takes this serious and fire the ones abusing this. AP, MDG, SV and Venstre all just say:
    «Everyone makes mistakes» and give no repercussions.

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