Shabana Rehman, born free | Now only the prestige remains in the Born Free case

Imagine your mobile phone is stolen and you report it to your insurance company.

The company responds that they believe you dumped it in the sea on purpose and puts a former cop to investigate you (there are a lot of these in the insurance industry). You will be called in for an interview, which eventually turns into an interrogation, where you will be pressured and asked important questions.

You firmly refuse, but are still discouraged by the new accusations from the “investigators.” They claim that Some I’ve seen you drop the phone, but they won’t say who or where it should have happened. In a report, the company later claims that he is lying and that he confessed during the “interview.”

READ ALSO: Now it’s Ernst & Young and IMDi who are left with the shame

He points out that he has never done that and discovers that much of his explanation is not included in the report and demands that they give him the audio recording to prove that he is telling the truth. You don’t get it, for “privacy reasons.”

This is not entirely different from what Shabana Rehman and Magne Tangen at the accounting firm Exacta Services believe they have been exposed by the auditing firm Ernst & Young (EY).

Født Fri’s lawyer, Harald Strandenæs, has demanded that the audio recording be turned over. EY responded by offering a transcript and believes that Rehman and Tangen can listen to the recording of the 4-hour interview at the EY facility.

Født Fris’s lawyer has rejected this, and the case will likely have to be decided by the Oslo District Court later this year.

In any event, this appears to be a strange and unnecessary use of force on the part of the audit giant Ernst & Young. I would say that it is also contrary to common sense.

IMDi has now relegated itself to the use of sheer force as well. On Monday, the management sent a press release on the case, in which they continue to refer to the EY report. Not a word about the professional criticism the report has received. Not a word about refuting wrong claims.

In particular, IMDi director Libe Rieber-Mohn’s response to the specific and serious mistakes Born Free has made is interesting:

Gone are EY’s claims about lavish spa stays, alleged drinking at large parties, and the expensive a-ha concert, which turned out to be free.

No, the problem now is the incorrect accounting of expenses for a documentary film project on Stovner magazine.

“Among other things, this is illustrated by the fact that the foundation has continuously covered the costs related to a documentary film project where the rights are owned by the CEO’s own company. Surveys of the foundation’s finances have shown that the project expenses, which are currently covered by the Born Free foundation, total NOK. 643020 to 12.31.2019. Only after the foundation learned that Ernst & Young needed to review the accounts, NOK 350,000 was transferred to the Born Free foundation from the CEO’s own company. As of September 10, 2020, there was still an outstanding balance of almost NOK 100,000, ”writes Rieber-Mohn.

ALSO READ: Nine Questions to IMDi Director Libe Rieber-Mohn
ALSO READ: Libe Rieber-Mohn responds to Nettavisen and Erik Stephansen

Now she quotes from one new Ernst & Young report – symptomatic enough other report that Born Free has not had a chance to respond, and that they again claims contain errors.

Rieber-Mohn also deliberately misinterprets my question about how much time they actually spent depriving Born Free of state aid. She responds magnificently:

“IMDi has not deprived Born Free of support. That’s what the Storting does. Every year, IMDi makes its recommendation to the Ministry of Education and Research on this point. After seeing the findings of the Born Free polls, we could no longer attest to our recommendation to support the organization with a new state budget of 6 million in 2021. We had to inform KD about that, ”he responds.

But that was not the budget for next year that I asked for.

Read more comments from Erik Stephansen

IMDi announced Born Free already in early September that payments this year by 2020 it stopped. According to a response from the Minister of Education, Guri Melby, they made this decision alone, without the involvement of the ministry. Rieber-Mohn avoids commenting on this.

We see the same consistent avoidance when it comes to Ernst & Young’s response to accountant Magne Tangen’s response to his first report (feel free to click the link and read it for yourself).

Hey now suddenly write a page up and down completely new items (also small items as low as 20 crowns) that EY believes have been entered incorrectly here, or that they believe project codes are missing there. In general, EY loves project codes, which make it easy for them to find the accounts, but does it have anything to do with the defaults?

And again, the new Ernst & Young report is published, without the accountant being able to respond and possibly correct the new statements.

Many of the new accusations are mere trifles, and it would be going too far to list them here. However, a real delight to Erasmus Montanus is Ernst & Young’s new “discovery” that an accountant should have mistakenly entered the editing team as an investment rather than an asset.

Government grants cannot be used for investments, EY notes; ergo, the foundation has broken the preconditions for government grants!

Others would be content to point out that the expense was wrong. A type of mistake that dozens of Norwegian companies make every day.

ALSO READ: Former Born Free investigator criticized for murder

But now we have passed the stage of open and factual dialogue. Now it is about doing to defend a decision. But hadn’t it then been an idea that Ernst & Young’s new claims in any case this time Was the quality assured before publication?

I am aware that the controversy over Born Free is now about how does it seem.

A good example of this is VG’s Astrid Meland’s comment last week. – This does not look good, he writes, in a kind of popcorn comment from the corner of the sofa, based on how the case looks in public, without delving into it.

For this very reason, the case must be examined with fresh eyes.

The case has attracted so much attention and points to so many questions of principle, that we actually have to find facts. No less important other organizations that receive public support are interested, which of course may be exposed to similar methods next time.