MDG politician Einar Wilhelmsen, who was secretary of Nature and Youth in the nineties, writes on Twitter/X that he gets “quite pissed off when the new minister of knowledge wants to drag everyone down with him into the mud.” The background is the explanation to Oddmund Hoel (Sp) that the membership fraud in Målungdommen was part of an established practice within a larger unculture. – About all organizations operated in the same way, said Oddmund Hoel in Politisk kvarter on Tuesday morning. In the nineties membership fraud was discovered in a number of youth organisations, and in 1998 four young AUF leaders were sentenced to prison for “false explanations to public authorities”. Wilhelmsen believes Målungdommen is in a special position because the falsification of membership lists will continue after this roll-up. – The special thing about Mållaget is that they continue to cheat, and were only exposed in 2002. This makes the cheating even worse, because after 1995 it was done against those who knew better, he says to news. “This is not one of the glorious parts of my past”, Hoel has explained. – I looked around at Norwegian youth organization life and assumed that everyone states too high membership numbers, and that this is how we do it, said Oddmund Hoel in Politisk kvarter on Thursday morning. – It seems to me that Hoel had several leadership positions in Målungdommen in the early nineties, and has acknowledged that the organization during this time overreported the number of members in order to get more money in state aid. In 2002, the organization was ordered to repay NOK 2.88 million to the state and NOK 100,000 in corporate fines. Wilhelmsen is happy about the minister’s “confession”, but thinks he is going too far in blaming “culture” and “practice”. – We were very careful about membership numbers and spent time going through all the routines and systems to make sure everything was right. That’s why I react to explanations that this was something everyone did, he says. – I think that’s mean. – I get quite pissed off when the new minister of knowledge wants to drag everyone down the drain with him, says MDG politician Einar Wilhelmsen. Photo: Stian Lysberg Solum / NTB – It’s not right that “everyone did it” Wilhelmsen gets support from Kristin Clemet, who got her first position in Unge Høgre in 1975. – It’s not right that “everyone did it”, she says . She points out that there are people who have not become state secretaries because they have benefited from so-called black laundry help or daycare. “In my book, it is not as bad as deliberately defrauding the state and taxpayers in the way Hoel has done,” she writes on Facebook. – Having said this, it is important to specify the following: You should be able to become a minister with far worse things in your luggage, if you have made amends. Oddmund Hoel responds to the criticism: – I have been quite clear that I take full responsibility for my role in over-reporting membership numbers during my period in leadership of Norsk Målungdom, from 1991 to 1994. What happened after I was out of the organization can I do not answer for. – I answer the questions I get, and in today’s Politisk kvarter the program manager wants to discuss the context in which this happened. The fact is that in 1996 an investigation was launched into all 72 organizations that received support from the Ministry of Children and Families, including Norsk target youth. These cases were eventually dropped, and then from 1996 the rules for such support were tightened. Dag Håkon Myrdal was responsible for the membership lists of the Conservative Student Association (DKSF) – Trondheim branch – in the mid-nineties. He gives Hoel credit for acknowledging that the cheating was “deliberate”, but believes the new minister is underestimating and relativizing his own responsibility. – It is simply not true that everyone inflated the number of members, and I still get a little angry when I think about how our political opponents ran away with a larger part of the pot than they were entitled to. He adds: – I myself have been involved in refusing office to political colleagues who have done less serious things than that. Kristin Clemet says there are people who have not become state secretaries because in the past they have benefited from so-called black laundry help or daycare. “In my book, it is not as bad as deliberately defrauding the state and the taxpayers in the way Hoel has done, Photo: Ole Berg-Rusten / NTB – That was one of the first questions that came up. Others have made a point that the the new minister of knowledge has stood “straight” and that his explanation that the cheating was intentional is “refreshingly honest”. In Politisk kvartar on Tuesday morning, Hoel said that he received questions about the matter on his first day as a new minister. – It was one of the first questions that came up on the first day, he says to program manager Bjørn Myklebust. – Had you and Støre agreed to say it out loud if no journalists asked about it? – No, we would not have done that. – How should we interpret it other than that they didn’t want it to come out? – I assumed that it would come, and then I had to answer it. – I took over a practice from my predecessors, says Oddmund Hoel. Here together with Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre.
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Criticism of education minister Oddmund Hoel for the explanation about the membership fraud in Målungdommen – news Vestland
