UDI taxi expenses increased by 10 million from 2014 to 2015. Overall UDI booked taxi transportation for over 28 million.
Figures from the Directorate of Immigration (UDI) have been prepared and disclosed to the newspaper VG. Also Aftenposten have received figures showing that UDI transported asylum seekers by different means of transport for a total of 85.2 million kroner in 2015.
Over 31,000 asylum seekers arrived in Norway last year, many of them in the last three months. It was also towards the end of last year that transportation costs increased substantially.
During the first three months this year the cost of taxi transportation of asylum seekers has already passed 13 million kroner. In addition to taxis, many are also transported by bus, train and plane.
– In 2015, the transportation costs increased significantly towards the end of the year, largely because of the large groups of asylum seekers that continuously had to be moved from arrival centers into temporary reception center solutions. UDI has recently worked to change this practice and now move residents straight to standard asylum reception centers. This has resulted in large transportation needs also in 2016, writes the press spokesman Kristian N. Stakset-Gundersen at UDI in an email to VG.
He adds that the number of asylum-seekers has now subsided, and that means a lower need for transportation to and from reception centers. Should there be a new upsurge in asylum arrivals, the situation will change again.
Source: NTB scanpix / Norway Today
