(Dagbladet): • Read all about it!
– It strikes me that everyone says’ this I have not heard of. “
closed rapporteur of the Parliamentary Scrutiny and Constitutional Committee, Helge Thorheim, the consultation process with the former ministers Jonas Gahr Støre, Minister Espen Barth Eide and Anne-Grethe Strøm-Erichsen.
– I was not informed of the sale until after the fact. I knew the boats would be sold, and it was an explicit condition that it should be sold for the best possible price, but within laws and regulations. I got a note that the sale was conducted within laws and regulations, and that it would be sailed under the British flag. I can not see that there was something in this note that would cause a warning light should go.
It is the essence of Espen Barth Eide defense speech.
Espen Barth Eide was defense minister from 11 November 2011 to 21 September 2012. In addition, he was Secretary of State from 21 September 2012 to 16 November 2013 and also worked as secretary of state under Anne-Grethe Strøm-Erichsen.
Does not even criticism
Thursday’s hearing happens because of Dagbladet’s revelations about the sale of naval vessels to paramilitary actors in West Africa.
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Jonas Gahr Støre followed the same track as Barth Eide:
– UD had no responsibility for the disposal process. Ministry of Foreign Affairs has dealt with the regulations in each case, said Støre, who sat as foreign minister from 2005 until 2012.
– There was contact between UD, FLO and customs authorities but not so that it sparked discussion about grove wrongdoing or corruption, continued Minister.
Minister was also confronted with his Dagbladet has previously placed the blame on the British government.
– I said that on Based on the information I had at the time, said Minister.
No FAQ
One of the featured boats – KNM Horten – was in July 2011 sold to the US private security company Osprey Global Solutions, headed by retired Special Forces General David L. Grange.
They should use the boat in the civil war in Libya. The trade was not something of which payments from the Americans failed to materialize. There was a festive atmosphere in the Ministry of Defence in May / June 2012 when 27 million kroner from the sale of six MTBs entered the account.
Email exchange and documentation showing that the management of FLO, Armed Forces and Ministry of Defence must have understood that the paramilitaries in West Africa and that the Nigerian government was the real buyers.
Still, no one questioned who had bought the boats and what they should actually be used.
Instead placed Støre, Barth Eide and Strøm-Erichsen responsibility downwards in the Armed Forces and their logistics organization so also the former defense chiefs Harald Sunde and Sverre Diesen did earlier today.
– Revealed in retrospect
Sunde says the errors and defects that have been discovered have surfaced in retrospect. He knew nothing.
– These are conditions that are revealed later in a part of the Defence Logistics Organisation, said Sunde.
In October 2012, the Foreign Ministry helping to facilitate visits from Nigeria to inspect MTBs and KNM Horten in Bergen.
In May 2013, the Norwegian embassy in Nigeria involved in obtaining visas to two bankers from Skye Bank PLC in Nigeria that would come to Norway with money for KNM Horten, without UD connected this to the boats might not be going to England anyway.
The closest the former ministers came self-criticism, the following statement from Anne-Grethe Power Erichsen:
– Anyone who sits as a minister at any time overseeing. This is a regrettable and serious issue, said former Defense Minister Strøm-Erichsen.
At the same time made it clear to her that disposals of defense was a delegated authority added defense chief, and that she therefore was not included with this:
– We had confidence that this happened in a correct and proper manner, she said.
Former Defence and Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide substantiated this:
– These specific cases were not challenged in my time, said Barth Eide.
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