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“This is a historic parliamentary event. It has never happened before the Storting has allocated money for something that does not exist.”
Left-wing profile Abid Raja was overwhelmingly excited about NTB when it became clear that his heart son, the Born Free Foundation, received NOK 5 million from the state budget for 2018.
The date was November 23, 2017. The foundation was only two weeks old and was entirely based on an initiative by Raja and the Liberal Party itself.
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Avisa Vårt Land has shown in a series of articles how quickly it happened since the idea of a foundation for shameless girls was launched internally in the party at the end of October 2017 until budget support was a fact in November of the same year.
Unorthodox creation
The idea of what was to be Born Free was presented to the public for the first time on November 1, 2017.
It occurred in the extensive post then held by Abid Raja in the so-called imperial wing of the Storting, by virtue of his role as a member of the presidency.
The Dagbladet reporter was present, at the time as a reporter for NTB. It became quite a strange affair. Especially since Shabana Rehman Gaarder, who was to lead the new foundation, seemed unprepared for what awaited her.
After presenting her thoughts on a completely new organization against social control and for women’s rights in minority communities, Raja went a long way by promising NOK 5 million on the state budget. Then she turned directly to Rehman Gaarder:
– Shabana, ta whale!
Born Free loses state aid: – Very serious
– Surprised
Rehman Gaarder, who was present in the office along with public debaters Iram Haq and Amal Aden, was excited and surprised, but couldn’t say yes to standing work:
– I appreciate your trust, but I ask you some questions about the process. We are not the ones who have come to the Liberal Party, he said.
Just over a week later, the Born Free foundation was established, with Rehman Gaarder as its leader. And just two weeks after that again, it was time for a cake party. The foundation was to receive NOK 5 million from the state budget for 2018, as promised by Raja and Grande in the vice president’s office in early November.
In recent years, the foundation has received just over NOK 15 million in state support. But now it’s over. Yesterday, the Liberal-led Ministry of Education and Integration announced that state aid will stop and the remaining funds will be withheld.
– sad to read
The announcement came after a devastating Ernst & Young audit report, which claims that Født Fri has abused parts of state aid and has shown inadequate financial management. The foundation strongly disputes this and believes that the report is full of errors (see below on the case).
Culture Minister Abid Raja and Liberal Party leader Trine Skei Grande have so far not commented on the further development of the case, which began as a warning case in August. But now they remove the blade from their mouths.
– Sad to read what’s in the report. But I think it is good to refer to the Directorate of Integration and Diversity of IMDI and the Ministry of Education, which is now giving more follow-up. I don’t need to comment on the report beyond this, Grande says.
– What do you think that the foundation, the auditing company and IMDI have such different points of view on this matter?
– I have no preconditions to have an opinion on this.
Raja: – It’s not unusual
Culture Minister Abid Raja decides to respond in writing to Dagbladet’s inquiries. He says that the Liberal Party “has always been concerned about the fight against negative social control” and that this is the reason why the purpose of the budget negotiations was raised in the fall of 2017 ‘.
– It is not uncommon for funds to be negotiated for various purposes and organizations in a budget debate in the Storting. And that budget unity is achieved only when all parties in the budget agree, Raja writes.
When he pitched the idea, he made no secret of the fact that he knew the three women in the office well.
– After all, we have all felt the culture of honor in the body and have participated in public debate for many years. In this way, we share a lot of pain together, Raja said, adding that it was not a problem for him to single out Haq, Aden and Rehman Gaarder.
– These are women who have been in the fight for many years and they know where the shoe hits, Raja said at the time. As a Grande, he now refers to the ministry and IMDI for questions about how assignments and the process have been used.
Criticism of Frp
In the fall of 2017, when the Liberal Party managed to fight for the 5 million for the new foundation, it was still only the Conservatives and the Green Party that were in government.
It was then-fiscal policy spokesman Helge André Njåstad who led the FRP delegation in the budget negotiations.
– The Liberal Party came up with this in addition to a host of other demands. The alarms did not sound, neither with us who negotiate nor with the government apparatus. We were used to the Liberal Party prioritizing spending money on smaller token matters and that wasn’t a huge sum, says Njåstad.
Nor does Svein Flåtten of the Conservative Party, who at the time was secretary of state in the prime minister’s office and acted as a liaison to budget negotiations, does not recall that the allocation was particularly problematic.
– Everything that is included in said negotiations will be subject to evaluations by the Ministry of Finance. And we must assume that everything is in order when the payments arrive, he says.
Helge André Njåstad of the FRP is very critical of the Liberal Party on one point:
– I did not know that the foundation was not constituted and that the initiative in its entirety came from the Liberal Party. Of course, we could have verified this more closely, but the Liberal Party obviously should have been clearer that this was their initiative, he says.
– I have no idea about this, Grande says in a comment. She did not participate in the budget negotiations, but was briefed at the general level as the parliamentary leader.
– Christmas is about forgiving
Without regrets
Trine Skei Grande does not express regret for the foundation’s somewhat unorthodox creation, but answers the following to the question of whether something should have been done differently:
– You can always evaluate that. The challenge was that there were very few channels to achieve our goal of combating negative social control. That money is set aside to work on attitude campaigns or to support people doing important work for society – not unusual at the Storting, he says.
When asked if the foundation’s expectations have been met, party leader Trine Skei Grande answers the following:
– I have no wish to comment on the organization at this time. The process must go its own way.
“Greetings to the right”
Back in Raja’s office in 2017, Grande defended the budget requirement, which in practice meant pledging state support to an organization that did not yet exist:
– It’s about encouraging the right people, he said.
In the interview with NTB, he was also asked if the funds should not be advertised, so that others could also request support:
– Yes, but we encourage you to come up with ideas on how this can best be worked on. We haven’t finished negotiating any of this, Grande said.
She denied that the proposal was seen as a promise to Shabana Rehman Gaarder of a new job and a budget of NOK 5 million. But that’s how it turned out, and now it may end as a criminal case.
Review evaluation
Ernst & Young’s report states that public funds have been used for expenses of a private nature and supplier acquisitions in close connection with Rehman Gaarder.
The auditing firm recommends reporting the situation to the police, which IMDi director Libe Rieber Mohn confirms is relevant.
– IMDi considers that it is sufficiently substantiated that the financial management of the foundation is not good, and that it is considered that parts of the grants have not been used in accordance with the purpose of the grant scheme, Rieber Mohn said yesterday.
She confirms to Dagbladet on Tuesday that a police report is still relevant.
– IMDi will evaluate the recommendations and consider further follow-up. It will necessarily take some time, says Rieber Mohn.
This caused Abid Raja to keep her nose closed
Reject the accusations
Shabana Rehman Gaarder already rejected the allegations in the audit report yesterday and stated in an interview with VG that it was full of errors. The chairman of the board, Jan Sverre Asker, did the same.
– We consider that the investigation is very unsatisfactory. The report contains a number of errors and inaccuracies, it says in a press release.
On Tuesday, organization secretary Morten Guldberg also responded harshly in a full article titled Faceless Accusers, posted on the foundation’s website. He claims the report is barely worth the paper it is written on, and claims the foundation is exposed to “a Kafka-like process” that should have political repercussions.
– This kind of scandalous behavior should have a political aftermath, where steps are taken to ensure that no one is ever in a similar situation of anarchy again. And that a public agency like IMDi cannot be used as a useful idiot in an organized witch hunt based on personal reasons, he writes.
Facing the strong allegations from Born Free, Imdi Libe’s director Rieber Mohn responds as follows in an email to Dagbladet:
– It has been important for us to have an external evaluation precisely to ensure a fair and good process. This has been done by a renowned international auditing company. Born Free was happy that we had a review. That they are not satisfied with the result is another thing.
