This doesn’t look good – VG

Comedian Shabana Rehman with her clever mule lift is loved in Norway. But she is also controversial. After her foundation, Born Free, was deprived of state aid this fall, she has struggled.

Rehman, with whom I was a colleague at Dagbladet many years ago, believes she is exposed to a campaign. It has the support of commentators from various media. And an experienced investigator that he hired has killed the Born Free investigation.

When the Directorate of Integration and Diversity (IMDi), however, upholds its decision, it seems gloomy for Born Free, which has lived almost exclusively on state support. They have three weeks to complain to the ministry.

Attacking processes is critical to all crisis counseling, and Rehman has scored several positive points.

However, I do not believe that IMDi, the audit firm EY or the malicious whistleblowers are to blame for the problems at Født Fris. The problem is that the foundation has messed with the economy.

Because the state is not good. It is totally square.

True, Rehman disliked some parts of the left after Muslim schoolchildren thought they had been mocked in the Stovner magazine in which she was central. It also fell on bad ground that Born Free awarded an award to former Iranian Lily Bandehy, critic of Islam. which makes the Norwegian Muslim believers very skeptical.

He also explains that proponents of habitual waste, such as Aftenposten writer Kjetil Rolness and Nettavisen’s Erik Stephansen, staunchly supported Rehman. It would not have happened if it was the Anti-Racist Center that had a general manager who did not need to approve their purchases and thus ended up with five mobile phones for two employees and a Mac for 73,000 kroner.

I think neither the supporters nor the critics have a special principle here. But that doesn’t mean they lack points.

It seems to me that the investigators at the audit firm EY have been as incomprehensible as these people can be.

You should be suspicious of the conclusion that a hotel stay to write a magazine script was actually a private stay at a spa. If Rehman was at the spa for the weekend, then what?

EY also seems to be exaggerating when they conclude that Født Fris’s accountant is “related” because he also has the accounts at Rehman’s private company.

Buying catering for Rehman’s sister doesn’t seem so bad if you add goodwill.

also read

– The worst thing that someone with a minority background can be accused of is abusing public funds

Rehman has specifically apologized for purchasing a drone for just under NOK 10,000 that has not been used. The accountant has regretted having approved the purchase of applications that may have been for private use.

And it could be that the Born Fris CEO needs a training app and Apple Watch to do his job, and that the foundation must have HBO to watch the “maid speech.”

It’s the mix between Born Free and Rehman’s own finances that is most difficult.

Making some purchases appear private is one thing. In addition, his own company received more than 600,000 crowns of expenses for a Born Free documentary. This has now been largely reimbursed, especially after the investigation began. The Born Fris accountant has explained this by saying that “they were not aware of what had been contracted.”

Alone.

It is rare to provide state aid to the private company itself (or vice versa) even if the purpose is good. And at least then don’t struggle to keep track.

In retrospect, Født Fri has accused the EY investigators of tunnel vision and unfortunate interrogation techniques. That is why EY in his reply cites that Rehman after the “interrogation” said “I think at least there has been very good communication with you.”

Today, Født Fris’s main accusation is that they have not been allowed to answer correctly and that he has gone too fast. Can be. But I don’t think the key answers have improved much over time. In any case, this does not mean that things have been taken care of at the foundation.

In Rehman’s defense, it must be said that Born Free was freed in a very unusual way, when Abid Raja persecuted her to work against social control. Raja arrived with the bag. And Rehman was asked to find a way to quickly spend all that tax money.

Rehman won the budget without having an organization of his own. Because this was politics. The Liberal Party demanded that Født Fri be granted in exchange for allowing the FRP to maintain state support for the Islamophobic organization HRS.

Rehman has many talents, but she herself has pointed out that she has no financial background. So maybe she shouldn’t have been chosen to run such an organization?

After almost three years of operation, former employees reported, among other things, the waste. The warnings were mentioned in the media, initially by Vårt Land and NRK.

Rehman naturally found it highly distasteful that the media described the trip to London with an A-ha concert and a spa in Son as purely private luxury trips.

And she responded well to this. Accountants may never go to performances in London, but artists do.

When it was still as it was, it is because in too many points there were no good answers.

Among other things, in the applications, lack of travel invoices, taxes on benefits, low employment of relatives and confusion between economies.

Perhaps Rehman could have received friendly advice in the past instead of a devastating audit report. And of course you can discuss what a magazine should cost. But I think you have to be pretty stingy when it comes to using taxpayers’ money.

It’s sad that this ends like this. I hope Rehman finds the strength to return. Maybe on stage.

According to the mullahs, there isn’t much funnier than auditors.