Norway’s fisheries minister facing calls to quit

Norway’s oldest newspaper, Adresseavisen, said confidence in Sivertsen was now so low that Prime Minister Erna Solberg should replace him.

The reason it wants Sivertsen’s departure is a revelation by another media outlet, Dagbladet, that the Conservative politician applied for and received NOK 120,000 in early retirement pay from his job as mayor of Lenvik for a month and a half while receiving wages as full-time vice-minister of trade. 

In addition, he was reimbursed by the county council both after he took on that role and when became fisheries minister.

Worked twice as hard

The seriousness of this matter, the newspaper believes, is that Sivertsen has knowingly and willingly enriched himself at the expense of a poor municipality, not just once, but twice. In addition to receiving undue early retirement pay, he also raised double pay for two months last autumn. 

Sivertsen argues that he was working twice as hard, both as mayor and vice-minister of trade. He has also said that he has repaid what he got paid from the municipality “kroner for kroner” and got the early retirement annuity agreement cancelled. 

“That he now cleans up the severance pay agreements and regrets the case, it the least he could do. That he did not realise the seriousness after the media began to write about the case is regrettable,” Adresseavisen, a Conservative newspaper, wrote.

Society based on trust

Per-Willy Amundsen, of the Progress Party, has also argued that Sivertsen must give up.

“The fisheries minister must go. Our social model is based on trust. To each other, to the authorities and to the politicians. Fundamental to this confidence is the idea that the rules are the same for everyone. Whether you are on welfare or sitting at the king’s table,” the MP wrote on his Facebook page on Monday afternoon. 

If Sivertsen does quit, it will leave looking for its fourth fisheries minister in 18 months.

His predecessor, Harald Tom Nesvik, stood down after the Progress Party to which he belongs withdrew from Norway’s coalition government in a row about whether an Islamic State bride should be allowed back into the country with her two children.

Prior to his appointment in August 2018, Per Sandberg was forced to resign following the trip to Iran with his partner, Bahareh Letnes, a former Miss Iran.