[ad_1]
– My agencies have said they have systems in place. We have taken care of that. This system is built on trust, said environmental councilor Lan Marie Berg (ODM) in Oslo City Hall on Friday.
The background of the hearing is NRK’s disclosures of more than 250,000 violations of the Work Environment Law in the municipality of Oslo.
Before the hearing, various parties threatened Berg with suspicion.
– Why have you withheld serious information from the city council for a year and a half? Eirik Lae Solberg (H) wanted to know.
– I’ve always been concerned about getting the facts and keeping the city informed, Berg replied.
The municipal audit has investigated what Berg herself has done to make sure her agencies are complying with the law.
At the hearing, they said that the Work Environment Law was not on the agenda until the fall of 2019. The exception is garbage cans, which received special monitoring.
– I assume that the municipal agencies follow the laws and regulations in force. And let me know if you have a problem with this, says Berg.
READ ALSO: The agencies said they had control of the steel while the law was being broken thousands of times.
– Would the quality ensure the numbers?
A key point in today’s hearing is whether Berg has informed the city council well enough about what he has learned about violations of the Work Environment Act at the agencies for which he is responsible.
The City Council will inform the City Council, in the same way that the Government must inform the Storting.
During today’s hearing, conservatives believed that Berg should not withhold serious information about crimes multiple times:
At the hearing, Berg defended himself saying that he had to ensure the quality of the figures before informing the city council.
When asked by the city council if he could have done something different when reporting to the city council, Berg replied:
– I have informed correctly in this case. And you have received good information about what you could share.
Berg emphasized that this was a serious matter and that she wasn’t sure what kind of information she could come up with. Berg explained that he would not come out with information for fear of hampering a possible police investigation.
– You would not have launched an external investigation if you wanted to hide the truth.
Lan Marie Berg (ODM) said during the hearing at Oslo City Hall that she has zero tolerance for systematic violations of the Work Environment Law.
Photo: Vegar Erstad / NRK
– Angry
During the so-called “garbage crisis” in Oslo in 2017, the city council took a hard line against the private company Veireno. They had broken the work environment law hundreds of times by emptying trash on behalf of the municipality.
Veireno’s boss, Jonny Enger, was later sentenced to prison.
In the years that followed, the municipality itself broke the law more than a quarter of a million times.
Winter 2017 gives Berg the following for NRK:
– This is not how it should be to work for the municipality of Oslo. I get pissed off when I hear that a company is breaking the workplace law over and over again.
When asked during the hearing if he still stands up for what he said, he replied as follows:
– Comparing Veireno with the municipality of Oslo is completely incomprehensible. I have zero tolerance for systematic violations of working time regulations.
He requested that the report not be presented
A key document is not on the table during the hearing: the full report from the Norwegian Labor Inspection Authority.
The City Council has twice asked the Authority not to send them the report, NRK revealed on Friday.
First, the submission of the report was postponed due to corona. It was then postponed again due to wage settlement.
The Norwegian Labor Inspection Authority has never postponed a report for so long before.
The opposition reacts strongly to this. Red believes this gives the city an advantage.
– The main argument of the City Council has always been that we must have all the facts on the table. Now the opposite is happening, says Rødt’s Eivor Evenrud.
Finansbyråd Einar Wilhelmsen (MDG) rejects NRK a connection between the hearing and the postponements.
– If the city council wants a new hearing when the report from the Norwegian Labor Inspection Authority is available, then of course we stand up to answer any questions the city may have, he says.
