Odd’s job: Norway appoints new aquaculture minister

Ingebrigtsen, 55, replaces fellow Conservative politician Geir-Inge Sivertsen, who was forced to resign after little more than a month in the job.

Sivertsen stepped down following revelations that he had applied for and received NOK 120,000 in severance pay for a month and a half as mayor of the former Lenvik municipality while also receiving wages as a vice minister of trade.

An experienced No2

Ingebrigsten, from the northern city of Bodø, was previously vice minister to oil and energy minister Tina Bru.

Trine Danielsen, a former director of salmon farmer SalMar, retains her position as vice minister of fisheries and seafood. The vastly experienced Danielsen, who was appointed by Sivertsen, has been involved in fish farming since the early 1990s.

Øyvind Andre Haram, head of communications at Seafood Norway, told Fish Farming Expert’s Norwegian sister site Kyst.no that it was very important that the government had finally appointed a government minister, given the coronavirus situation Norway and the aquaculture industry are now in.

Good leadership

“More than ever we need a minister who can show good leadership, and take the seafood industry further and grow now in a very special situation,” said Haram.

“Seafood is one of the most important things we export from Norway. There must be good routines and conditions for the industry so that we can maintain operations.

“Odd Emil Ingebrigtsen is well-known to us. He is someone who is concerned with the coastal business, aquaculture and fisheries, and has been central to Bodø Right (Conservatives) for many years.”

‘Storm of questions’

Haram commended Danielsen for her work after Sivertsen resigned at the beginning of March.

“She has been more or less alone in the storm of questions from the seafood industry about the consequences of the coronavirus spread, and the tasks that the ministry is otherwise working on. So, we commend and thank her for her efforts. This has been an insane pressure,” said Haram.

Ingebrigtsen is Norway’s fourth fisheries minister in just over a year and a half.

Harald Nesvik

Sivertsen replaced the Progress Party’s Harald Tom Nesvik, who stepped down when his party withdrew from Norway’s coalition government in a row about the repatriation of an Islamic State bride and her two children.

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

He broke rules by taking his government mobile phone with him and failing to inform the Prime Minister of his trip.

According to several experts, the phone was likely to have been hacked by Iran during the trip.