Loga sámegillii. Reindeer owners are given a deadline of three weeks to provide input, reports the State Administrator in Troms and Finnmark. A review carried out by the state administrator a year ago showed that the total expenses came to NOK 18.5 million. Initially, NOK 2.7 million was set aside for the assignment. Now 10 out of 19 managers of siida in reindeer herding district 13 – Lágesduottar have been notified that they must pay NOK 6.9 million from the count. – After the deadline of three weeks to provide input has expired, the final recourse requirements will be drawn up, says Aspaker in a press release. – The amount can therefore be changed after the affected reindeer herders have expressed their opinion, the report states. news has today been in contact with some of the reindeer owners in the district, but they were not aware of the warning. Already in May 2023, the then Minister of Agriculture and Food Sandra Borch (Sp) determined that the state would demand that the reindeer owners pay. Forced count The reindeer count was carried out from January to March in 2022. Initially, there was an ordinary public count of the district’s reindeer, but it was later a forced count where the state took over all the work. The reason for this was that the state believed that some of the reindeer owners sabotaged the count. Some of the reindeer owners have denied that they opposed the work. – We wanted to protect and spare our animals from unnecessarily harsh stress. There was a lot of hard-packed snow and ice in the area. There was a grazing crisis, and under such conditions it is not justifiable to drive weak animals for miles with snowmobiles and two helicopters, said reindeer owner John Idar Anti to news. Reindeer owner John Idar Anti from Karasjok. Photo: EILIF ASLAKSEN / news The district has the spring, summer and autumn pastures in Lebesby, Tana and Gamvik municipalities, and the winter pastures are in Karasjok. State employees broke the law At the same time, the count triggered an avalanche of violations of the law. news revealed in April last year that government employees broke the law more than 300 times. Certain government employees worked 28 hours straight – and external employees submitted fictitious time sheets. – It was a shock, state administrator Elisabeth Aspaker told news. State administrator in Troms and Finnmark, Elisabeth Aspaker. Photo: EILIF ASLAKSEN / news The then Minister of Agriculture and Food Sandra Borch believed that the offenses were not an obstacle to the state being able to demand that the reindeer owners pay the expenses. This is called regression. – If it had been possible to count district 13 through an ordinary count, the costs would have been much lower. Nor would there have been any recourse claims then. But as there was a forced count, the state has a duty to collect expenses associated with a forced count, Borch wrote in an e-mail to news in April last year. State administrator Elisabeth Aspaker reports today that the size of the recourse claim is the result of a thorough review of the counting assignment. – Deductions have been made for several matters for which the State Administrator cannot charge the reindeer owners. This applies, among other things, to costs that the State Administrator would have incurred anyway when carrying out an ordinary count, and costs that we believe are not sufficiently well documented and quality assured, she says. Must have assistance In October last year, the Ministry of Local Government and Districts (KDD) and the Ministry of Agriculture and Food (LMD) asked for assistance from the State Administrator in Vestland to complete the claim for recourse. The reasoning was that “The State Administrator in Troms and Finnmark has a challenging situation in office in connection with the reindeer census in winter 2022.” – The first phase of the project is work up to an advance notice. The second part of the project is the work up to a decision. It is assumed that drafts of both advance notice and decision are sent to LMD for review and approval before dispatch. The government attorney will assist in the ministry’s review, KDD wrote to the state administrator. This project has a framework of NOK 700,000, it appears from the letter. This week, the State Administrator in Troms and Finnmark has sent the advance notice to the reindeer owners. Two managers changed Two of the most central managers for the census at the state administrator are no longer in the jobs they had in connection with the census. Stian Lindgård, who was assistant state administrator, has left his job. Sunna Pentha was reindeer husbandry director. She has transferred to the position of technical director at the state administrator, wrote ifinnmark.no in December (requires login). Lindgård denied to the newspaper that he quit his job as a result of the reindeer count. – There is no direct connection there. It has been done after an overall assessment on my part. I want education and I want to do something else, he said. According to ifinnmark.no, Lindgård has a severance package of NOK 1.4 million. Former assistant state administrator, Stian Lindgård. Photo: Marius Fiskum / The county governor Pentha told ifinnmark.no that she moved to another position for health reasons.
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History’s most expensive reindeer count: Now the reindeer owners have received a notice from the state – news Sápmi
