The cup ran over when Bergen governor Hanne H. Svendsen read about the bonus schemes in Statkraft. Here you can see today’s Debate. She then took to the keyboard and sent an e-mail to Debatten program manager Fredrik Solvang. – The amount is completely beyond all reason, she wrote, among other things. Hanne gets ready for the Debatten broadcast. Photo: Eirin Tjoflot / news Svendsen is neither a top manager nor a stock trader. She calls herself an ordinary employee. The 62-year-old believes that many like her react to the bonus amount. The e-mail to Debatten resulted in an invitation in return. Today she confronted the Statkraft boss live. – Totally hair-raising, she says on Debate on Thursday evening. At the bottom of the file, you can read the entire email. Bonuses in the billions It is almost a year since Statkraft CEO Christian Rynning-Tønnesen laid flat on the Debate. Also then, the theme was the company’s bonus party. In 2022, Statkraft paid out NOK 2.3 billion in other benefits. This item also contained the bonuses. It made several people see red. CEO Rynning-Tønnesen promised a fine and improvement. On live broadcast, he complained that the stock traders, or the so-called traders, received high bonuses. – It was high and we regret it, but we have changed the system from 1 January this year, he promised then. Statkraft’s bonus amounts in 2023 are lower than the previous year. Nevertheless, they are in the billions. Last year, the company paid out 1.8 billion for other benefits, the pocketbook where the bonuses are located. – It is a sum that includes all employee benefits beyond normal pay, for all employees worldwide, he says during the Debate on Thursday evening. – It is necessary to pay the traders a scheme that has a large part of variable pay as we operate in a labor market where it is common, he adds. – Madness The debate about the Statkraft bonuses has thus become heated again. And Are Tomasgard, Labor Party politician LO secretary, is among those who poured fuel on the fire. Tomasgard points out that the bonuses to Statkraft for the last three years total almost NOK 5 billion. Furthermore, he compares the sum with the current support. – To put these extreme bonus amounts in perspective, the state has so far paid out NOK 42.2 billion in electricity support to the WHOLE Norwegian people, Tomasgard wrote on Facebook. – The bonuses internally in Statkraft in the last three years therefore amount to 10 per cent of all electricity support, he added. Tomasgard also appeared on the Debate on Thursday evening. – This is madness. We must tackle this. We cannot continue with this here, he says. People completely lose confidence, he says. Hanne Svendsen adds: – This is something unlike anything else in this country, which is actually so good to live in. Here you can read the entire letter to Hanne: Hi Fredrik Solvang. I don’t know if this email will reach to you, but would like to be able to give tips on topics in the Debate. The topic is the bonuses in Statkraft, which Klassekampen wrote about yesterday, March 5. The amounts are, in my and my colleagues’ terms, completely beyond all reason. That they have received bonuses equivalent to 10% of last year’s electricity subsidy! is something that you hardly have words to describe the “madness” in. And this as a reward for selling “our” electricity abroad…?!! There are poor people sitting around our country, who have to pay for their electricity in installments when they receive social security, but who could actually have let this go, if things were a little different… Completely nuts, we think. THIS is something that engages people, I’ll tell you, and which is discussed around the lunch tables – but which (unfortunately) you can’t do anything about. Hope you will take this up in the Debate – it needs the light of day! A little about me: Ordinary employee, consultant/administrative employee in a government agency, and over 60 years of age. Have been in work for more or less 40 years, part-time and full-time. I pay my taxes with pleasure, and think we have wonderful welfare benefits in this country, which you can benefit from if you get sick or injured and have to go to hospital – hooray for that. No system is without errors, not even the Norwegian one. But at least it is the best you have as of today. I know that many people, like me, think a lot is wrong and wrong in this country, and sometimes you can tip the Debate about it, as I am doing now. Thank you for an incredibly interesting (mostly) interesting and enlightening program that covers a wide range, and thank you for your attention if you are reading this. Sincerely, Hanne H. Svendsen
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Rages against the bonus schemes in Statkraft: – Totally hair-raising
