The Parliamentary Control and Constitutional Committee has presented its findings on the report by the official July 22nd Comission, and is united across party lines in criticising the Stoltenberg coalition government.
Spokesman for the Control Committe, Geir Bekkevold (KrF) presented their findings Tuesday evening.
According to the committe Chairman Anders Amundsen (FRP), all parties in Parliament including the three coalition parties stand behind criticism of the Government. They all agree on eleven points where they belive the authorities failed before and during July 22'nd - 2011.
The Committee believes that the main responsability for what went wrong on July 22'nd rests with Prime Minister Jens Stoltenber and Minister of Justice, Knut Storberget. The Committee also expressed strong criticism against Renewal Minister Rigmor Aasrud (Ap) and her predecessors, because of their failure to close the street in front of the Government buildings, Grubbegata, for traffic, despite several reminders.
The 22nd of July issue has been the most comprehensive among any case processed by the Control and Constitutional Committe. Their task was to identify the causes of failure and place the political responsibility for what failed on 22 July 22'nd.
According to a unanimous Committe, the most important contributing factors were:
- Failure to shut Grubbegata, despite desicions to have this done
- Interim measures for closing Grubbegata was not implemented
- Staffing of police operations centers were not sufficient - Police helicopter was not on alert
- National alert system did not function
- Important plans were not implemented or only partially applied
- Requests for assistance from the military came too late
- Securing key buildings such as Parliament came late
- The Police Directorate was not adequately evaluated on their work in terms of Civil Protection and Preparedness
- Risk recognition was not high enough on the agenda, neither by political authorities nor the police
- The ability to learn from the exercises has been minor
Amundsens agrees that there has been a great willingness within the Contitutional Committee to come to an agreement on its findings.
Although all parties in Parliament agree in the strong criticism, a motion for a Vote of no confidence will not be presented by the opposition.
Their reason: The Minister of Justice at the time, Knut Storberget, left his position, Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg made a public apology for the poor performance, and promised that everything will be better, - and finally there is an upcoming parliamentary election where the voters will have their say.
NRK/The Norway Post
