– I never experienced anything like this – VG

– He had never experienced anything like that. That way we just can’t have it. If those of us in government at the time had been informed about this procedure, I think the result could have been different, says Listhaug.

The reason for the attack on Raja and the Liberal Party is that the comedian and social polemicist Shabana Rehman (44) in an interview on VG said that she formed the Born Free foundation after being summoned by Abid Raja.

Born Free was established in the fall of 2017 as a foundation with the goal of working towards negative social control and equality across all genders, religions and ethnicities.

– He was invited by Abid Raja

But it was not forces outside politics that started the foundation: it happened at the initiative of the Liberal Party.

Rehman said Thursday that she was invited by Abid Raja and then-liberal leader Trine Skei Grande, along with social debater Amal Aden and filmmaker Iram Haq.

– Abid Raja called me, who was then a parliamentary representative. She said that the government should allocate funds to an organization that would promote the struggle of immigrant women against social control, and that it wanted me, she told VG.

In the end, Rehman, Aden and Haq created Født Fri, which received NOK 5 million in state support from the state budget.

– It was a liberal project

The foundation has come under fire after the government announced Monday night that it would cut support for Born Free as a result of a critical audit report.

Rehman believes the report is full of errors and has denied that there is a basis for losing support.

– So it was Raja and Venstre who lobbied for the establishment of a foundation and made sure they received five million crowns the first year. I think it is very serious that something like this has happened, without the government and the Storting being informed of the place. In reality, the Liberal Party secretly gave millions of crowns to a foundation, without reporting that the liberal politicians themselves were behind the foundation seeing the light of day, Listhaug says.

– Are you suggesting that they gave five million crowns to a project of the Liberal Party, without informing that the Liberal Party was behind it?

– Yes, it has become clear that it was the Liberal Party that took the initiative of this foundation. So it can certainly be said that it was a liberal project.

– It is not a matter of small changes

His party colleague, Helge André Njåstad, was present when the case was processed.

– It was Terje Breivik from the Liberal Party who was the messenger when the case reached the Storting. But for me it was completely new that the Liberal Party had such a central role in the formation of this foundation: That we did not get to know anything about it, it is almost incredible, it is very serious, he says and adds:

– These are not small coins, but five million crowns the first year and a total of 15 million crowns until today. There are so many organizations and foundations that would like to receive so much money, but they don’t. It is very special that this foundation receives so much money, without us who allocate the money knowing that it was actually the Liberal Party that was behind it. It’s very unfortunate, says Njåstad.

The foundation has received 5 million crowns from the state budget for 2018, 6 million last year and 3 million so far this year.

Raja says the case was known

Abid Raja is currently Minister of Culture and Gender Equality. Denies doing anything wrong.

– When we were out of government and the FRP was the ruling party, we negotiated the state budget together and, of course, we were jointly responsible for the result. As we now send demands for budget negotiations from the FRP to ensure quality in the ministries, the FRP probably did the same when they themselves were in government, says Raja.

You think they have played open cards.

– It is clear in a case in Aftenposten on November 1, 2017 that the organization did not exist and it was discovered that «the new organization aims to be a social actor that contributes to support and helps those affected, as well as to contribute to the development of skills and to social change ».

I went to the cafe

He also points out that he says that “after meeting with the two liberal leaders, the three women went to a cafe to discuss how they can establish a new organization as quickly as possible.”

– And on November 23, 2017, NTB wrote that the foundation was established two weeks ago and that since “then there was an organizational unit, it was possible that the four bourgeois parties supported the work in the budget,” he says.

Raja says that he and Rehman have a friendly tone, but that they are neither friends nor “meeting in private.”

Refers to the lack of organizations

In an interview with VG this weekend, outgoing Liberal leader Trine Skei Grande commented on the process.

– Have you been criticized by commentators when it comes to organizations that have been created to receive money?

– We have done things like that many times in politics. For example, when we started a subsidy scheme to clean plastic from the sea, there were no organizations doing this. But we created a system to do that. We made a fairly large pot for this to happen, so it became a subsidy scheme. There were also no organizations that did this.

– DN commentator Eva Grinde writes in her newspaper that foundations and organizations like Født Fri should come from below the voluntary sector.

– I completely agree with her that it is the best way to do it. The challenge is when we have an agenda in which we want to fight against social control and there are no organizations. In this field, it has been difficult to organize, because many do not have the usual Norwegian NGO culture in the backbone. So it has been more difficult to do it.