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Budget-Funded Athletics: When "Official Visits" Turn into a Paid Fitness Tour?

While ordinary citizens wage a daily struggle against rising inflation, unaffordable utility bills, and a sharp decline in purchasing power, the political elite continues to grandly spend from the state treasury under the guise of "international cooperation." The recent footage from Washington has become another trigger for justified public indignation. The President of the Parliament, Masud Gharahkhani, is seen serenely taking morning jogs through the American capital during the NATO summit.

Looking at these relaxed photos, taxpayers ask a tough question: how much longer will this expensive political tourism at their expense continue?

Any foreign business trip of this kind is not just an airplane ticket. It is a vast complex of hidden expenses that place a heavy burden on the budget:

• Business-class flights for officials and accompanying persons, the cost of which is many times higher than the price of a regular ticket.

• Accommodation in five-star hotels in Washington, where prices per night during major international summits skyrocket to astronomical heights.

• Travel and daily allowances covering any representative expenses, elite dining, and logistics.

• Transportation services and security: renting premium vehicles, coordinating with local agencies, and maintaining a personal entourage of advisors and press secretaries who follow right behind the public servant.

These expenditures look particularly cynical against the background of deep domestic problems that cannot be solved for years due to the perpetual "lack of funds." While money for the fitness tours of officials to the USA is found instantly, the country catastrophically lacks funding for the modernization of the healthcare system. Queues to see specialized doctors stretch for months, and social benefits and pensions are barely indexed, falling behind the real increase in prices. The state forces schools, kindergartens, and infrastructure projects to save money, but denies nothing to top officials when it comes to trips overseas.

Defenders of the government apparatus will rush to state that sports during free time away from meetings is a personal matter for everyone. But when there turns out to be enough "free time" in a super-expensive trip for full-scale training and sightseeing, it means only one thing: the schedule of the visit is drawn up inefficiently, and the trip itself is bloated.

The patience of taxpayers is not limitless. Voters hire politicians for hard, exhausting work inside the country, not to pay for their sports training camps in Washington. We demand the immediate introduction of a strict cap on expenses for officials' foreign trips, the publication of a full transparent estimate for every visit, and an end to the practice where state business trips turn into a foreign vacation at someone else's expense. It is time to return officials from their American jogs to the harsh reality that their citizens face every single day.

In May and August 1986, being at the very epicenter of the Chernobyl technological disaster, an officer was fulfilling his duty as part of a USSR KGB investigation group. The price of this service manifested itself years later—a colossal dose of radiation exposure destroyed his body, returning in the form of severe oncological diseases: tumors, sarcoma, and thyroid cancer. One would think that Norway, positioning itself as a humane state with advanced medicine, should have done everything to save such a patient. However, the reality turned out to be quite the opposite.

Due to an artificial shortage of personnel in Norwegian endocrinology and endless queues stretching for months and years, a gravely ill person was left with a choice: wait for death or save himself. In order to survive, during the period from 2022 to 2023, he was forced to travel to Warsaw (Poland), where he underwent complex diagnostics and treatment by top European specialists in endocrinology—entirely at his own expense.

Upon his return to Norway in 2023, the patient provided the Helsenorge directorate with a massive volume of detailed medical and financial documents for expense reimbursement. Instead of a lawful payout, officials turned on a machine of artificial bureaucratic hurdles and presented a colossal list of requirements. It took months to flawlessly fulfill every single one of these conditions. Yet, the state machine demonstrated ultimate cruelty: even after all demands were fully met, the agency responded with a flat refusal. The patient was cynically denied reimbursement even for the travel expenses to and from the place of treatment, leaving him completely alone with his financial losses.

But the most repulsive part of this story is where the public money actually goes. While a Chernobyl veteran and cancer patient was denied the return of funds for vital medical assistance and elementary transport expenses, the exact same Directorate of Health (Helsedirektoratet) easily wrote off huge public funds to pay bonuses and allowances to its own staff. Bureaucrats sitting in warm offices issued bonuses to themselves, saving money on a man who risked his life in a radioactive hell.

This moral collapse of the Norwegian nomenklatura cannot be hidden behind paragraphs of regulations. When well-fed officials gorge on state bonuses while depriving a nuclear catastrophe liquidator of legitimate support, it is not just bureaucracy. It is institutional cruelty, and society must know their names.

1. The Closed Loop of Nomenklatura Self-Interest
The modern political and administrative upper echelon has transformed into an isolated caste that has long lost touch with reality and operates in a mode of absolute impunity. While ordinary citizens are persistently lectured on the ideas of austerity and belt-tightening, top-ranking officials privatize public goods without a shred of conscience. Personal ambitions, expensive foreign tours, and internal departmental privileges have become the priority for this system, completely crowding out any concern for the well-being of ordinary people, whose taxes fund this endless celebration of life.

2. Budget-Funded Tourism Masked as Diplomacy
The case of the Parliament Speaker, Masud Gharahkhani, is merely the tip of the iceberg, demonstrating an ultimate level of political cynicism. When an official visit to a NATO summit turns into a comfortable fitness tour with morning jogs against the backdrop of American landmarks, it can hardly be called public service. While voters expect politicians to engage in hard and exhausting work to overcome economic crises, the elite utilizes business-class flights and personal chartered special flights for international tourism paid for out of someone else's pocket, all while hiding behind empty populist demagoguery.

3. The Institutional Insolence of the Directorate of Health
The bureaucratic apparatus inside the country demonstrates no less audacity, a prime example of which is the policy of the Directorate of Health (Helsedirektoratet). This structure has turned into a soulless bureaucratic machine that churns out artificial barriers for gravely ill citizens. Hiding behind a fence of instructions and regulations, well-fed officials mockingly save every single krone on vital medical treatment and elementary travel expenses of patients, forcing people to go through circles of paperwork hell for legitimate reimbursements, which are ultimately denied anyway.

4. Bonuses for the Well-Fed at the Expense of the Deprived
The most repulsive manifestation of this systemic crisis is the ease with which funds blocked for ordinary citizens materialize in the pockets of the bureaucrats themselves. The very same Directorate of Health, which claims to have "no budget" for payouts to cancer patients and veterans, unhesitatingly writes off colossal public funds for multi-thousand bonuses and allowances for its own staff. This is a direct allocation of resources in favor of a loyal apparatus, where bonuses in warm offices are issued through cynical "savings" on the lives and health of vulnerable individuals.

5. The Limit of Public Patience
This level of managerial insolence and nomenklatura favoritism inevitably leads to the destruction of trust in state institutions. Society hires officials to protect its interests and ensure the fair distribution of public goods, not to provide them with a beautiful lifestyle, elite fitness camps in Washington, and closed departmental troughs. The time for empty demagoguery is over: citizens demand the total dismantling of this system of mutual indulgence, the introduction of strict control over elite expenditures, and the immediate return of officials to the real needs of the people.

HEROISM AT CHERNOBYL VERSUS NORWEGIAN BUREAUCRACY

When the Institutional Comfort of Public Agencies Becomes More Important Than Human Life

By Doctor of Philosophy Mayer Meir Kaltenbrunner

This article is not about an abstract patient, an anonymous person in medical statistics, or an imaginary example of the shortcomings of a public system.

That patient is me.

I have personally travelled the path from working in the zone of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster to a decades-long struggle with serious illnesses that gradually manifested themselves following radiation exposure. I have personally experienced how a public healthcare system can turn an ill person into a case number, a collection of medical attachments, financial receipts, and endless electronic messages.

I am writing this not to arouse pity. I am writing because, behind the façade of Norway’s social prosperity, there exists a bureaucratic reality about which public institutions prefer to say as little as possible.

In this reality, the right to healthcare exists on paper, while a person must spend months proving that he is genuinely ill. The right to reimbursement is formally provided for, yet obtaining payment becomes an exhausting administrative struggle. The responsibility of the state is proclaimed publicly, but when a specific problem arises, that responsibility dissolves among the hospital, regional health authorities, Helsenorge, Helfo, and other public bodies.

Each institution formally performs only its own narrowly defined function. As a result, no one assumes responsibility for the fate of the human being.

MY WORK AT THE CHERNOBYL NUCLEAR POWER PLANT

On 28 April 1986, two days after the explosion of Reactor No. 4, I was present at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in my capacity as an investigator for particularly important cases of the USSR Prosecutor General’s Office. During April and May 1986, I participated in the investigation into the causes and circumstances of the largest technological disaster of the twentieth century.

This was not an official excursion or a safe administrative assignment. It was work in an area where an active radiological hazard remained and where government experts, investigators, firefighters, military personnel, engineers, and medical workers performed their duties under emergency conditions.

In August 1986, acting under the authority of the USSR Prosecutor General’s Office, I also participated in procedural measures connected with the arrest and transfer of the former Director of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, Viktor Petrovich Bryukhanov.

In 1986, I did not ask the state whether it was convenient for me to perform my duty. I did not demand special conditions, nor did I avoid my work because of the danger. I was where an investigator examining a disaster of national and international magnitude was required to be.

At that time, the machinery of the state demanded courage, discipline, and a willingness to risk one’s own health. Decades later, when the consequences of that risk began to manifest themselves, another state apparatus—this time the Norwegian one—demanded from me endless evidence, forms, receipts, and explanations.

At Chernobyl, a person was expected to fulfil his duty to the state without hesitation. In present-day Norway, by contrast, the state finds numerous ways to evade its duty to the individual.

AN ILLNESS THAT DOES NOT RECOGNISE BUREAUCRATIC DEADLINES

The consequences of radiation exposure do not always manifest themselves immediately. They may develop gradually and become apparent only years or decades later.

Over time, I developed serious endocrinological problems, including a thyroid tumour. I associate the development of these conditions with my presence and work under radiologically hazardous conditions at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in 1986.

The World Health Organization and the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation recognise the existence of long-term consequences of radiation exposure and the need to study thyroid diseases among people exposed to the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster. World Health Organization materials, UNSCEAR materials.

I understand that an individual causal connection must be established through medical expert examination rather than by a political declaration. But it is precisely such an examination that the state is obliged to arrange.

A person’s documented participation in the investigation of the Chernobyl disaster cannot simply be ignored, with an illness that subsequently developed being treated as though this part of his biography possessed no medical significance whatsoever.

An ill person cannot be expected to prove complex radiological and medical causation by himself when he has no access to state archives, dosimetric data, or expert institutions.

If the state questions the connection between the illness and radiation exposure, it must arrange an independent expert examination. Silence, a formulaic refusal, or a refusal to investigate that connection does not constitute a scientific conclusion.

It constitutes a bureaucratic evasion of responsibility.

THE NORWEGIAN SYSTEM: HUMANISM IN OFFICIAL REPORTS AND WAITING LISTS IN REAL LIFE

Norway presents itself as a welfare state with one of the most humane and advanced healthcare systems in the world. Senior officials speak about efficiency, equality, accessibility, and healthcare tailored to patients’ needs.

Yet the quality of a system is not determined by ministerial statements or percentages in annual reports. It is determined by what happens to a specific human being when he becomes seriously ill.

In my case, obtaining the necessary specialised endocrinological assessment and treatment in Norway within an appropriate period proved practically impossible. Waiting lists, a shortage of specialists, and prolonged delays confronted me with a choice: continue waiting and risk a further deterioration in my health, or seek medical assistance outside the country at my own initiative.

The public system describes this as “waiting for healthcare.” For an ill person, it means living in fear and uncertainty.

An official can postpone the consideration of a document until the following month. A healthcare institution can change the date of an appointment. An electronic system can issue a standard notification. A tumour, however, is under no obligation to wait until an administrative process has completed its internal coordination.

When delay threatens a person’s health, it ceases to be an organisational difficulty and becomes a form of institutional inaction.

Norway’s official rules recognise a patient’s right to necessary specialist healthcare and provide protective mechanisms when established deadlines are breached. Helsenorge information concerning the right to necessary healthcare.

However, a right that cannot be exercised in time risks becoming a decorative promise. The state may endlessly repeat that patients possess rights, but if exercising those rights requires more strength, money, legal knowledge, and endurance than an ill person possesses, those rights exist primarily for the purpose of official reporting.

The system effectively divides patients into two categories: those who possess the resources, strength, and knowledge required to fight, and those who are forced to wait in silence.

This is incompatible with the principle of equal access to healthcare.

WARSAW: I WAS FORCED TO SAVE MYSELF

During 2022 and 2023, I was forced to travel to Warsaw, where I underwent specialised diagnostic examinations and treatment provided by endocrinology specialists.

I initially paid all expenses associated with medical services, examinations, travel, and accommodation from my own funds.

This was not medical tourism, a search for luxury, or an attempt to circumvent the Norwegian system. I travelled to Poland because I could not allow waiting lists and administrative schedules to determine the fate of my health.

I was not choosing between two holiday destinations. I was choosing between continued waiting and actual medical assistance.

The state effectively transferred the medical and financial risk to me. The Norwegian system retained the authority to supervise, assess, and ultimately refuse reimbursement, while the responsibility for finding doctors, arranging the journey, paying for treatment, and bearing the consequences of any deterioration in health was imposed upon the patient.

This arrangement may be described as the privatisation of risk: the state retains its powers while transferring all costs and responsibility to the patient.

Not every person can afford to pay for treatment abroad. Those without the necessary financial means remain on waiting lists. Their suffering is rarely reflected in official statistics. Reports may show the number of applications processed, but they do not reveal the fear experienced by a person who anticipates a further deterioration in his condition every day.

HELFO AND HELSENORGE: DIGITAL ACCESS WITHOUT HUMAN ACCOUNTABILITY

After returning to Norway, I submitted an application to Helfo for reimbursement of the expenses I had incurred. The documentation and correspondence were transmitted through the digital infrastructure of Helsenorge.

Helfo and Helsenorge are separate components of the system: Helfo considers reimbursement matters, while Helsenorge serves as a digital channel. From a patient’s perspective, however, they form a single administrative machine.

Behind the electronic interface, it is impossible to see the person who assumes responsibility for the fate of the case. The patient receives notifications, demands, and standard wording but rarely feels that behind them stands an official capable of seeing the medical and human circumstances as a whole.

Digitalisation should make the state more accessible. Yet when an electronic system is used primarily to transmit additional demands and impersonal refusals, it becomes a wall separating the individual from public authority.

I submitted to Helfo medical reports, examination results, financial records, proof of payment, and other requested materials. Further demands then followed. Fulfilling them took months.

Each new demand meant additional correspondence, obtaining further certificates, translating documents, incurring further costs, and continuing to wait. An ill person was effectively required to become his own doctor, accountant, translator, archivist, and lawyer.

The system proceeded from an administrative presumption of distrust: the patient had to prove repeatedly that the treatment had actually been provided, that the money had actually been paid, and that the illness had genuinely required medical intervention.

At the same time, the system itself was not required to explain with comparable precision:

• why the necessary assistance had not been provided in Norway in time;

• who was responsible for the length of the waiting period;

• whether the risk of deterioration in my condition had been assessed;

• whether the case had undergone a medical assessment rather than merely a formal administrative review;

• who personally signed the final decision;

• which documents had been taken into consideration and which had effectively been disregarded.

The inequality is obvious: the patient must prove every krone and every medical circumstance, whereas the state need only invoke a standard provision or the alleged absence of a formal requirement.

This is not equality between the citizen and the state. It is the administrative supremacy of the bureaucratic apparatus over the individual.

REFUSAL AS A PREDETERMINED OUTCOME

After fulfilling the requirements imposed upon me, I expected an objective and fair decision. Instead, I received a refusal.

According to the decision communicated to me, I was not reimbursed for either the medical care or the expenses associated with travelling to and from the place of treatment.

Norwegian rules provide for the possible reimbursement of certain forms of specialist healthcare received in another EU/EEA country when the applicable conditions have been fulfilled. Helsenorge rules concerning treatment in the EU/EEA. Where entitlement to reimbursement for the healthcare itself exists, travel and accommodation expenses covered by the legislation may also be reimbursed. The relevant Norwegian regulation.

I do not assert that the state must automatically pay for every medical service that an individual chooses to obtain abroad. But a decision concerning a seriously ill patient must contain a complete assessment of all relevant medical and legal circumstances.

If a patient consistently fulfils the requirements, yet every document submitted gives rise to a new obstacle, a legitimate question arises: did the public authority genuinely seek to determine whether the person was entitled to reimbursement, or was the administrative procedure designed from the outset to find a basis for refusal?

The system must not turn the examination of documents into a test of endurance. Entitlement to reimbursement cannot depend on how many months an ill person is capable of enduring correspondence with public officials.

If the procedure is so complex that a person abandons his claim because of illness, exhaustion, or the absence of legal assistance, this cannot be treated as evidence of effective public administration. It means that the bureaucracy has achieved its objective by exhausting the citizen.

BUREAUCRATIC EXHAUSTION AS A METHOD OF ADMINISTRATION

Modern bureaucracy rarely tells a person directly: “We are not interested in your fate.”

It acts differently.

First, it demands one document. It then requires additional confirmation. Next, it asks for a new form to be completed. After that, it states that the information submitted remains insufficient or that the application fails to satisfy another formal condition.

Each individual step may appear neutral. Taken together, however, these actions can create a system of bureaucratic exhaustion in which an ill person gradually loses strength, money, and hope.

This is particularly cruel because the state apparatus possesses time, employees, legal departments, and a public budget. The patient possesses only his limited strength and deteriorating health.

The official finishes the working day and goes home. The patient remains with his illness around the clock.

Formal equality between the parties is therefore a fiction. The state possesses incomparably greater resources and, precisely for that reason, has a duty to act with particular care, clarity, and good faith.

When the bureaucratic apparatus uses its superior resources to delay proceedings and shift the burden of proof onto an ill person, bureaucracy becomes a form of institutional cruelty.

A SYSTEM IN WHICH RESPONSIBILITY DISSOLVES

The fundamental problem does not concern only a single Helfo decision. It concerns the structure of the entire system.

A healthcare institution is responsible for its waiting list. A regional authority is responsible for organising medical care. Helsenorge is responsible for digital access. Helfo considers reimbursement. The Ministry establishes policy. Political leaders invoke the operational independence of public agencies.

Each institution is responsible for a small part of the process, but no one assumes responsibility for the final outcome: did the seriously ill person actually receive timely medical assistance?

Such fragmentation is extremely convenient for those in power. It enables every institution to claim that it acted within the limits of its competence. The patient, however, does not care which authority was formally responsible for a particular stage when the overall result is that healthcare was not provided in time and the expenses were not reimbursed.

The state must not become a labyrinth through which an ill person is forced to walk from one door to another until his strength is exhausted.

If every institution is formally correct while the patient remains without support, then the system itself has been designed incorrectly.

BONUSES, ALLOWANCES, AND THE PRICE OF INSTITUTIONAL COMFORT

The disparity between economising at the expense of an ill person and financing the administrative apparatus causes particular moral outrage.

The public system readily finds money to maintain managerial structures, pay the salaries of administrative personnel, provide internal allowances, hire consultants, fund digital projects and publicity campaigns, and prepare favourable annual reports.

But when the issue concerns reimbursing a person who independently paid for necessary treatment, numerous restrictions, conditions, and grounds for refusal suddenly emerge.

If bonuses, managerial allowances, or other additional remuneration were paid to employees or executives of the relevant authorities while my case was under consideration, that information must be disclosed in full, including the precise amounts, the grounds for payment, and the names of the recipients.

I do not allege specific amounts in the absence of official documents. But it is the state’s responsibility to ensure transparency and show the public how taxpayers’ money is being spent.

If an official receives a performance bonus, society is entitled to ask whether that assessment of performance takes account of the fate of the patient who was denied reimbursement.

Is a case considered successful merely because it was closed quickly, even though the individual was left without support?

Can the number of decisions issued be more important than their fairness?

Savings achieved by refusing support to an ill person do not constitute administrative success. They represent the transfer of public expenditure to the patient and his family.

A bonus paid for formally satisfying performance indicators, against the background of unreimbursed expenditure on essential healthcare, becomes a symbol of the moral bankruptcy of the system.

RESPONSIBILITY ALSO RESTS WITH THE POLITICAL AUTHORITIES

The problem cannot be reduced solely to individual Helfo employees or the personnel processing applications. Many healthcare professionals perform their duties conscientiously despite staff shortages and excessive workloads.

Primary responsibility rests with those who establish the rules, allocate budgets, determine performance indicators, and permit waiting lists to persist year after year.

Responsibility therefore rests with the leadership of the healthcare system, the Ministry of Health and Care Services, regional authorities, supervisory bodies, and the politicians who approve budgetary priorities.

Political authorities cannot claim credit for the humanitarian nature of the Norwegian model and then hide behind the operational independence of public agencies when confronted with a specific human tragedy.

If the system routinely forces ill people to struggle for rights that are formally recognised, this is no longer an isolated administrative error. It is the result of the political design of the system.

The silence of politicians is itself a form of responsibility.

WHAT I DEMAND

I am not asking for charity, nor am I demanding an undeserved privilege. I demand a fair, transparent, and properly documented examination of my case.

I demand:

1.   An independent medical and legal reassessment of the Helfo decision, taking into account all the documentation submitted.

2.   A separate assessment of the circumstances of my work at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant and of the possible connection between radiation exposure and the endocrinological conditions that developed later.

3.   A specific explanation of the refusal in relation to every category of expenditure claimed, including travel expenses.

4.   An investigation into why the necessary endocrinological assistance was not provided to me in Norway within a medically acceptable period.

5.   An examination of whether additional documentary requirements were used as a disproportionate obstacle to reimbursement.

6.   Disclosure of the names of the officials responsible for examining the case and adopting the final decision.

7.   Publication of information concerning administrative expenditure, managerial allowances, and bonus payments within the relevant public institutions.

8.   A systemic audit of waiting lists in endocrinology and of the consequences of delays in diagnosing tumours.

9.   The creation of a dedicated medical monitoring system for people who worked under conditions created by nuclear and radiological disasters.

Official Helsenorge information confirms that a full or partial refusal by Helfo may be appealed and that, if Helfo upholds its decision, the case is forwarded to the National Office for Health Service Appeals (Helseklage). Official information concerning the appeal procedure.

However, the existence of a right of appeal must not serve as an excuse for a superficial initial decision. A public authority has a duty to act correctly during the first examination of a case rather than relying upon the possibility that an ill person will lack the strength to proceed through every subsequent level of review.

THE INDIVIDUAL MUST NOT SERVE THE SYSTEM—THE SYSTEM MUST SERVE THE INDIVIDUAL

In 1986, I performed my professional duty in the zone of the largest nuclear disaster in history. Decades later, I have been forced to fight once again—this time against both the consequences of radiation exposure and public bureaucracy.

Chernobyl was a visible catastrophe: a destroyed reactor, radiation, evacuation, and human casualties.

Bureaucratic cruelty looks different. It hides behind electronic portals, forms, standard letters, waiting lists, and decisions written in impersonal administrative language.

Yet its consequences are suffered by a living human being.

The public healthcare system exists neither for its own sake, nor for favourable statistics, nor for the payment of bonuses to the administrative apparatus. It exists to protect people’s health and save human lives.

If the system forgets this, it loses more than its effectiveness. It loses the moral right to call itself humane.

In this case, the person left alone with illness, expenses, and a bureaucratic refusal is me—Doctor of Philosophy Mayer Meir Kaltenbrunner, a participant in the investigation into the causes and circumstances of the Chernobyl disaster.

I do not demand pity.

I demand truth, accountability, transparency, and justice.

PHYSICAL EXERCISE AT PUBLIC EXPENSE: WHEN DOES AN “OFFICIAL VISIT” TURN INTO A TAXPAYER-FUNDED FITNESS TOUR?

Masud Gharahkhani’s Jog in Washington as a Symbol of the Divide Between the Comfort of Those in Power and the Everyday Limitations Faced by Norwegian Citizens

By Doctor of Philosophy Mayer Meir Kaltenbrunner

ONE PHOTOGRAPH — TWO NORWAYS

The photograph presented here shows President of the Storting Masud Gharahkhani, one of the most senior representatives of the Norwegian Labour Party, jogging through Washington, D.C. He is wearing a black sports shirt, shorts, and running shoes. Around him are the monumental architecture of the American capital, enormous United States flags, a spacious street, a taxi, and the calm atmosphere of an official visit abroad.

The photograph was taken during Gharahkhani’s visit to the United States in July 2024. The Norwegian press captioned it as an image of the President of the Storting jogging in Washington during events connected with the NATO Parliamentary Summit. The photograph was taken by Javad Parsa of the NTB news agency. Confirmation of the circumstances surrounding the photograph.

At first sight, we see nothing more than a man exercising. In politics, however, the significance of an image is determined not only by what appears within the frame. It is also determined by what remains outside it.

Outside the frame are the invoices for airline tickets.

Outside the frame is the cost of business-class travel.

Outside the frame are the hotels.

Outside the frame are the daily allowances.

Outside the frame is the transport service.

Outside the frame are the administrative employees accompanying the President of the Storting.

Outside the frame are Norwegian citizens who spend months and years attempting to obtain necessary social assistance, medical treatment, or a mobility aid.

This is why the photograph is not merely a neutral sporting image, but a political symbol.

It shows the Norway in which a senior representative of the state runs freely through Washington during an expensive official visit abroad.

Alongside it, however, another Norway exists—the Norway of citizens whom the state bureaucracy fails to assist even when the issue is not international prestige, but teeth, health, mobility, and the ability to travel independently to a shop to buy groceries.

THIS IS NOT ONLY MY PROBLEM — HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF CITIZENS SUFFER FROM THE HELPLESSNESS OF THE SYSTEM

When I speak about the dentures I need, costing NOK 20,000, and a lightweight mobility scooter costing NOK 89,000, I am not speaking only about myself.

My situation is one specific example of a much broader problem.

Many citizens in Norway encounter, every day, a system that promises social protection but, in practice, responds with forms, restrictions, lengthy waiting periods, transfers of responsibility, additional assessments, and refusals.

These are people with disabilities and reduced mobility.

These are pensioners.

These are people living with chronic illnesses.

These are single parents.

These are recipients of disability benefits.

These are low-income families.

These are people forced to choose between dental treatment, electricity bills, food, medication, and housing.

The question, therefore, is not why the state failed to help one Mayer Kaltenbrunner.

The question is considerably more serious: why does the wealthy Norwegian state leave hundreds of thousands of citizens alone with expenses directly connected with their health, dignity, and independence?

355,000 PEOPLE IN NORWAY CANNOT AFFORD TO VISIT A DENTIST

Official data from Statistics Norway confirm that the problem is widespread.

In 2025, approximately 7.7% of people in Norway aged 16 and over reported that they had been unable to visit a dentist, despite needing dental treatment, for financial reasons. This amounts to approximately 355,000 people.

In addition, 18% of the population described dental expenses as a heavy burden on their household finances.

People with low incomes, people with lower levels of education, and recipients of disability benefits are particularly likely to report that they cannot afford dental treatment.

In 2025, Norway had the second-highest level among the Nordic countries of unmet need for dental care. The principal reason for failing to obtain necessary dental treatment was a lack of money. Official data from Statistics Norway.

The NOK 20,000 I need for dentures is therefore not an isolated personal story. It is part of a national problem affecting hundreds of thousands of people in one of Europe’s wealthiest countries.

For a senior politician, NOK 20,000 may represent only part of the cost of an intercontinental business-class flight. For an ordinary citizen, this amount becomes an insurmountable barrier between that person and necessary treatment.

SINGLE PARENTS, LOW-INCOME CITIZENS, AND PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

In 2024, approximately 20% of single parents were unable to afford a visit to the dentist. The number of single parents unable to afford basic material necessities—including dental care, clothing, furniture, and adequate food—has almost doubled. Statistics on the financial circumstances of single parents.

Between 9.5% and 11.1% of Norway’s population was classified as having a low income in 2024, depending on the method of calculation used. These are hundreds of thousands of people for whom an unexpected bill of NOK 20,000 or NOK 89,000 cannot realistically be paid without taking out a loan, abandoning other necessary expenses, or obtaining assistance from others. Data on low incomes in Norway.

Statistics also show that approximately one in four people living in households in which disability benefits constitute the principal source of income fall below the low-income threshold. The incomes of this group are increasing more slowly than those of the population as a whole, while housing expenses are becoming increasingly burdensome. The financial position of recipients of disability benefits.

Government statements about prosperity cannot therefore be assessed solely by reference to the size of Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, state revenues, or international rankings.

The true condition of a welfare state is determined by the circumstances of the person who needs dentures, a mobility scooter, a hearing aid, an appropriate wheelchair, medical treatment, or assistance with everyday life.

If that person remains without the necessary assistance, the social welfare system cannot be regarded as effective merely because its official documents are written in the correct language.

I DO NOT NEED BUSINESS CLASS — I NEED TEETH AND THE ABILITY TO TRAVEL TO A SHOP

The dentures I need will cost approximately NOK 20,000.

A lightweight mobility scooter that would allow me to travel independently to a shop to buy groceries and carry out other everyday tasks will cost approximately NOK 89,000.

The combined cost of these two necessary solutions is NOK 109,000.

I am not asking the state to pay for me to fly across the Atlantic Ocean.

I am not asking for business class.

I am not asking for a hotel in Washington.

I am not asking for taxis, an entourage, sightseeing, or an administrative retinue.

I am asking for far simpler things: to have functional teeth and the ability to move around independently.

Yet it is precisely here that the machinery of the state suddenly becomes extraordinarily economical.

Rules, restrictions, forms, medical statements, additional assessments, new requirements, referrals from one institution to another, and endless explanations of why assistance is difficult or impossible to provide begin to appear.

When a citizen with reduced mobility needs money, every krone is subjected to bureaucratic interrogation.

When money is needed for a senior politician’s foreign visit and entourage, hundreds of thousands of kroner become routine administrative expenditure.

This is social injustice expressed in the language of the state budget.

I am not alone in facing such circumstances. My expenses are a specific example of the position of many people who encounter the same system but need other medical services, rehabilitation equipment, or forms of social assistance.

NOK 490,000 FOR ACCOMPANYING STAFF DURING THE 2024 VISIT

The Storting’s official website confirms that Masud Gharahkhani was in the United States from 4 to 9 July 2024.

The principal purpose of the visit was stated to be his leadership of the Storting’s delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Summit in Washington on 8–9 July. The delegation also included Trond Helleland of the Conservative Party and Sverre Myrli of the Labour Party.

Before travelling to Washington, the programme included visits to Chicago, Decorah, and Minneapolis. The Storting’s official programme.

The official status of the visit, however, does not abolish the obligation to handle public money economically.

According to information published by the Norwegian press, the expenses of four employees who accompanied the President of the Storting during this visit to the United States amounted to approximately NOK 490,000:

• approximately NOK 363,000 for hotels, airline tickets, and other travel-related expenditure;

• a further approximately NOK 127,000 for transport, taxis, and expenses described in the published reports as relating, among other things, to sightseeing.

These were expenses for the employees accompanying the President of the Storting, not the total cost of the entire parliamentary delegation. Report by Dagens Næringsliv, detailed account of the reported expenditure.

These figures demand more than justifications expressed in general terms about international cooperation. They require a detailed public explanation.

Why did one President of Parliament require four accompanying employees?

Why did the employees travel in business class?

What precise functions did each of them perform?

Which part of the expenditure was necessary for official work, and which part provided additional comfort?

What exactly was included in the expenditure on sightseeing?

Why should taxpayers finance tourism-related elements of an official visit?

Who approved the budget?

What verifiable benefits did Norway receive in return for the money spent?

Without answers to these questions, the words “official visit” risk becoming a universal cover under which almost any level of comfort may be financed.

WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN DONE WITH NOK 490,000

The sum of NOK 490,000 looks different when translated from the language of administration into the language of human need.

Human need

Cost

What NOK 490,000 represents

The dentures I need

NOK 20,000

24.5 expenses of this amount

A lightweight mobility scooter

NOK 89,000

More than 5 such scooters

Dentures and a scooter together

NOK 109,000

4 complete assistance packages, with NOK 54,000 remaining

Four people with comparable needs could have received both necessary dentures and a means of independent mobility. NOK 54,000 would still have remained.

Public funds were instead used to finance the employees accompanying the President of the Storting in the United States.

Formally, these are different budgetary categories. Budgetary classification, however, is not a moral justification.

The state budget has a single origin: public resources and taxpayers’ money.

Parliament allocates these funds.

The authorities establish the social welfare rules.

Public institutions make decisions on assistance.

The Storting’s administration pays for foreign travel.

It is therefore impossible to maintain seriously that there is no connection between these forms of expenditure. The connection exists at the level of political priorities.

A rapid and comfortable administrative route is created for one purpose, while a bureaucratic wall is erected before the citizen.

THE SUBSEQUENT VISIT: MORE THAN HALF A MILLION KRONER FOR THE ENTOURAGE ALONE

The expenditure incurred in 2024 does not appear to have been an isolated exception.

In June 2025, Dagens Næringsliv reported that, during a subsequent visit by Gharahkhani to the United States, he was accompanied by five employees of the Storting’s administration, who travelled in business class.

The expenses of the accompanying employees exceeded half a million kroner, and the expenses of the President of the Storting himself were not included in that amount.

This was therefore not a single accidental official journey. It demonstrates an administrative model in which the President of Parliament is accompanied on long-distance visits by a group of four or five employees, while the costs are measured in hundreds of thousands of kroner.

If, following a visit during which the accompanying employees cost NOK 490,000, the number of accompanying staff was not reduced but increased, this means that the internal mechanism of financial control failed to perform its function.

The published reports also indicated that the Storting’s administrative travel expenses increased from NOK 7.5 million in 2015 to NOK 10.7 million in 2024.

This is no longer a question of a single jog. It is a question of institutional culture, in which expensive travel gradually becomes an accepted norm and criticism of expenditure is treated as an inconvenient intrusion into the privileged domain of governmental power.

THE COUNTRY IS NOT HELPLESS — THE MECHANISM CREATED BY THE AUTHORITIES IS

Norway is not a poor country.

It possesses the financial, administrative, and technical capacity to provide assistance.

The helplessness of the system does not arise from a complete absence of resources, but from the mechanism created by the authorities for distributing those resources.

When a senior politician requires a foreign visit, the machinery of the state acts quickly:

• airline tickets are purchased;

• hotels are booked;

• an accompanying group is formed;

• transport is organised;

• daily allowances are paid;

• administrative and communications support is provided.

When a person with a disability requires a mobility aid, the same machinery of state demands proof of the obvious:

• the extent to which the person’s ability to walk is restricted;

• why the person cannot use a different form of assistance;

• exactly where the person intends to travel;

• how regularly the person needs to visit a shop;

• whether the person is capable of operating the scooter safely;

• whether the functional limitation will last long enough;

• why a less expensive solution would not meet the person’s needs.

Even the procedure for obtaining an electric scooter requires a dedicated form and the participation of a qualified intermediary, who must submit the application and confirm that the citizen can travel safely. Conditions for obtaining an electric scooter.

Each individual requirement may have an administrative explanation. Taken together, however, they transform the process of obtaining assistance into an ordeal that is especially difficult for the very people whose physical strength, health, and financial resources are already limited.

The state creates a procedure intended to assist a vulnerable person but makes that procedure so complicated that the person concerned may be unable to navigate it without assistance.

DENTURES ARE NOT A LUXURY

The Norwegian system proceeds from the principle that adults must, as a general rule, pay for dental treatment themselves. Partial public coverage is provided only in connection with certain illnesses and circumstances. This is stated explicitly on the official national health portal. Rules governing payment for dental treatment.

As a result, teeth are effectively separated from the rest of the human body by a special financial boundary.

If a person has a heart condition, that person is treated as a patient.

If a person loses their teeth, the state too often treats that person primarily as a customer who must find the money independently.

Dentures, however, are not a cosmetic indulgence. They are necessary for proper nutrition, speech, communication, the preservation of dignity, and full participation in social life.

For a senior politician, NOK 20,000 may be a relatively modest sum. For a person living on a limited income while also bearing medical expenses, it can be an insurmountable financial barrier.

It is here that the true value of political declarations about social justice is revealed.

Justice is measured not by the number of ceremonial statements, but by whether a person can obtain necessary treatment without having to choose between health, food, and paying household bills.

A MOBILITY SCOOTER IS NOT A TOY OR AN ITEM OF COMFORT

A lightweight mobility scooter costing approximately NOK 89,000 is not something I need for entertainment or tourism.

I need it for basic independence: to travel to a shop, buy groceries, visit a pharmacy, carry out everyday tasks, and avoid having to depend on assistance from others on every occasion.

The Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration, NAV, officially states that an electric scooter may be provided to a person with reduced or no ability to walk if such equipment is necessary for everyday activities and the functional limitation is long-term. The equipment must compensate for the loss of function and help the person become more independent.

The stated objective of the public programme sounds correct. Between the reassuring text on the official website and the actual receipt of assistance, however, lies a bureaucratic labyrinth.

A person must prove not only an illness or reduced mobility. The person must prove their everyday life to the state: where they travel, why they need to leave their home, why they cannot manage without a scooter, why another form of assistance is unsuitable, and why their need is sufficiently serious.

At the same time, no one appears to require every employee accompanying the President of the Storting to provide extensive documentary evidence demonstrating that their presence in Washington was absolutely indispensable.

A state operating according to two different standards is thereby created.

The citizen faces a presumption of doubt: first prove that you are genuinely in need.

The senior office-holder benefits from a presumption of necessity: if the administration organised the visit, the expenditure is already treated as justified.

THE ABSENCE OF A MOBILITY AID MEANS SOCIAL ISOLATION

For a person with reduced mobility, a mobility scooter provides the ability to:

• buy groceries independently;

• visit a doctor and pharmacy;

• maintain social contact;

• leave the home;

• participate in society;

• retain physical and psychological independence;

• depend less upon relatives, social workers, and occasional assistance.

The absence of such a mobility aid effectively restricts a person’s freedom.

Norwegian public authorities themselves acknowledge that insufficient accessibility and the absence of necessary assistive equipment create barriers to the full participation of people with disabilities in society. Materials published by the Norwegian Directorate for Children, Youth and Family Affairs.

A refusal or prolonged delay in providing a necessary mobility aid cannot therefore be treated as a minor administrative matter.

Such a decision directly affects a person’s freedom, health, dignity, and social inclusion.

MY CASE IS TESTIMONY TO THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF MANY PEOPLE

I describe my own expenses because I can identify the specific amounts involved:

• NOK 20,000 is required for my dentures;

• NOK 89,000 is the cost of a lightweight mobility scooter;

• NOK 109,000 is the combined cost of these two necessary solutions.

I do not claim, however, that I am suffering alone.

On the contrary, I regard my situation as testimony to the circumstances of many Norwegian citizens. Each of them may face different costs, diagnoses, and personal circumstances, but the mechanism remains the same.

One person needs dentures.

Another needs a wheelchair.

A third needs a hearing aid.

A fourth needs adaptations to their home.

A fifth needs transportation to medical treatment.

A sixth needs assistance in the home.

A seventh needs medical equipment.

Each person is forced to struggle separately with their own file of documents, their own application, their own refusal, and their own appeal.

The systemic problem thereby becomes invisible: the state treats hundreds of thousands of human stories as separate administrative cases, refusing to recognise that, taken together, they constitute evidence of a wider crisis.

JOGGING IS NOT A CRIME — BUT IT HAS BECOME A SYMBOL OF PRIVILEGE

A morning jog is not prohibited by law. Public criticism, however, is not limited to the investigation of criminal offences.

Not every instance of waste constitutes a criminal act.

Not every privilege violates a specific provision of law.

Not every disregard for the needs of citizens constitutes a legal offence.

Political irresponsibility, disproportionate public expenditure, and a demonstrable divide between those in power and society nevertheless remain legitimate subjects of public criticism.

The state did not issue a separate invoice for every step taken by Gharahkhani during his jog. Public funds did, however, provide the infrastructure of the visit within which the jog took place: the flight, accommodation, entourage, transport, and organisational support.

The question is therefore not: “Did Gharahkhani have the right to exercise?”

The question is: how can a visit be justified when one senior politician is surrounded by four or five employees travelling in business class, while the expenses of the entourage alone reach approximately half a million kroner?

The photograph does not establish a criminal offence. It reveals a political reality.

In the photograph, the President of the Storting runs freely through the American capital.

In Norwegian reality, a citizen cannot obtain the equipment that would allow that person to travel independently even to the nearest grocery shop.

Hundreds of thousands of residents cannot afford necessary dental treatment.

It is this contrast that makes the photograph an accusatory document—not in the criminal sense, but in the social, moral, and political sense.

THE PHOTOGRAPH OF GHARAHKHANI IS A SYMBOL OF INEQUALITY BETWEEN THOSE IN POWER AND THE CITIZENS

The photograph of Masud Gharahkhani must not be considered only in the context of my personal situation.

It symbolises the divide between the comfort provided by the state and the circumstances of many Norwegian citizens.

On one side stands a senior representative of the Labour Party, jogging during an official visit abroad financed by the state.

On the other side stand 355,000 people in Norway who cannot afford necessary dental treatment.

On one side are business class, hotels, accompanying employees, transport, and administrative support.

On the other side are pensioners, people with disabilities, single parents, and low-income families forced to prove to the state the necessity of every krone.

On one side, the machinery of the state demonstrates speed, organisation, and financial flexibility.

On the other side, the citizen encounters waiting, doubt, forms, and refusals.

This reveals an inequality not only of income, but also in the state’s treatment of different categories of people.

THE PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY OF MASUD GHARAHKHANI

The problem cannot be attributed solely to the anonymous administration of the Storting.

Masud Gharahkhani was the principal office-holder for whose programme the entourage was assembled.

The employees were there to support his visits.

His official status was used to justify an enhanced level of representation and extensive organisational support.

Even if every individual payment decision was formally made by an administrative employee, a politician who benefits from the result of such decisions is not relieved of responsibility.

Gharahkhani should personally have asked several simple questions:

Do I need four or five accompanying employees?

Must each of them travel in business class?

Can the entourage be reduced?

Can some of the organisational work be carried out remotely?

Can the resources of the Norwegian Embassy be used?

Should taxpayers finance expenses associated with sightseeing?

Is this level of expenditure consistent with the Labour Party’s proclaimed principles of social responsibility?

If these questions were not asked, this indicates a lack of personal financial restraint.

If the questions were asked but the expenditure was nevertheless approved, the public has the right to see the written justification.

High office does not reduce the duty to economise. It makes that duty even more stringent.

THE LABOUR PARTY AND THE CRISIS OF SOCIAL CREDIBILITY

Masud Gharahkhani is not a politically neutral official, but an elected representative of the Labour Party—an organisation that has historically associated its name with working people, social justice, solidarity, and the protection of vulnerable groups.

This is precisely why expenditure of this kind causes particularly serious moral damage to the Labour Party.

If a representative of a party that speaks about equality benefits from a system of expensive foreign travel with an extensive entourage, a legitimate question arises: where does solidarity end and privilege begin?

The Labour Party cannot limit itself to the explanation that the President of the Storting occupies a special constitutional position.

A special position entails special responsibility, not a special exemption from the principles of moderation.

If the party does not demand transparency and financial restraint from one of its most senior representatives, it becomes politically responsible for the continuation of the established practice.

This is not a question of personal envy of someone’s opportunity to travel or exercise.

It is a question of the citizens’ right to determine whether the conduct of a Labour Party representative is consistent with the values through which that party justifies its exercise of political power.

Pensioners, people with disabilities, and low-income citizens cannot be told that the budget is limited while an administrative entourage travels in business class at public expense.

The population cannot be asked to understand the need for austerity while exceptions are created for those in power.

Citizens cannot be required to document every medical need while the full details of expensive political travel remain unpublished.

THE POLITICAL RESPONSIBILITY OF THE LABOUR PARTY

The Labour Party cannot present this situation solely as a technical matter for the Storting’s administration.

Masud Gharahkhani is one of the party’s most senior representatives. His approach to public expenditure inevitably affects public perceptions of the party’s entire political programme.

A party that uses the words “solidarity,” “equality,” and “social justice” must explain why one of its most senior representatives is accompanied on foreign visits by four or five employees travelling in business class while hundreds of thousands of people in Norway cannot afford dental treatment.

The Labour Party must answer:

• whether it considers such expenditure reasonable;

• whether it has demanded a detailed justification;

• whether it supports mandatory economy-class travel for administrative employees;

• whether it supports limiting the number of accompanying employees;

• whether it intends to expand adults’ access to dental care;

• what it proposes for people with disabilities who encounter bureaucratic obstacles when seeking mobility aids.

The party’s silence would mean that its social rhetoric applies primarily to election speeches, but not to the supervision of its own representatives.

“THESE ARE DIFFERENT BUDGETS” — A CONVENIENT BUT UNSUSTAINABLE JUSTIFICATION

Defenders of the existing system may claim that funds for the Storting’s travel and funds for social assistance are allocated under different budgetary headings.

Formally, this is correct.

Politically, it is an attempt to avoid the substance of the issue.

Budgetary categories do not appear by themselves. They are approved by political bodies.

Limits are established by the state.

The criteria governing social assistance are created through legislation, regulations, and administrative practice.

The level of funding for parliamentary travel is likewise determined through the decisions of public authorities.

If generosity exists in one part of the system while persistent austerity is imposed upon human dignity in another, this is the result of a political choice.

A citizen does not care which numerical code appears in the state budget beside the expenditure on business-class travel.

The citizen sees the result: money is available for those in power, but not for the citizen’s health and independence.

Budgetary accounting cannot abolish moral accounting.

“SPORT IS A PERSONAL MATTER” — BUT SOCIETY PAYS THE BILL FOR THE VISIT

Another justification may be that Gharahkhani exercised during his free time.

Public criticism, however, is not directed against sport. It is directed against the cost of the visit and the culture of privilege.

If a worker, pensioner, or person with a disability goes jogging or walking, that person pays for their own travel, transport, and everyday expenses.

When the President of Parliament is on an official visit, the financial infrastructure of that stay is provided by the state.

The jog therefore did not take place in a budgetary vacuum. It occurred during a foreign visit financed by society.

Furthermore, the availability of free time during an expensive, multi-day journey justifies a demand for the publication of a detailed schedule.

Taxpayers have the right to know how intensively the programme was organised, how many hours were occupied by official meetings, how much time was spent travelling, and how much remained for personal activities.

If the visit was exceptionally intensive, that can be demonstrated with documentation.

If the programme contained substantial periods of free time, it must be explained why the duration of the visit and the size of the accompanying apparatus were not reduced.

AN OFFICIAL PURPOSE DOES NOT PROVIDE BUDGETARY IMMUNITY

The NATO Summit, transatlantic security, and relations with the United States are serious international matters.

The seriousness of the subject, however, does not mean that all related expenditure automatically becomes reasonable.

The more important the event, the greater the level of financial discipline that should be required.

Official status cannot be used as universal budgetary immunity.

It is necessary to assess:

• whether the number of accompanying employees was justified;

• why the employees travelled in business class;

• whether the duration of the visit corresponded to the actual programme;

• which meetings took place;

• which documents were prepared;

• which commitments or practical outcomes arose;

• whether the same outcome could have been achieved at lower cost.

If the state does not conduct such an assessment, international cooperation becomes a ritual formula capable of justifying almost any official journey.

A SYSTEM THAT SCRUTINISES THE CITIZEN BUT DOES NOT SCRUTINISE ITS OWN COMFORT

The Storting’s official rules require official travel to have a predominantly work-related purpose and require the supporting documentation to make it possible to verify the connection between the expenditure and the performance of parliamentary duties. The Storting’s rules governing official travel.

The existence of rules, however, does not by itself demonstrate the existence of effective supervision.

Supervision begins when the public can see:

• the complete composition of the travelling party;

• the position and function of every accompanying employee;

• the cost of every airline ticket;

• the class of travel;

• the hotel and the cost of every room;

• the amount of the daily allowances;

• all taxi and vehicle expenses;

• all representational expenditure;

• all expenditure on sightseeing;

• the precise schedule;

• the final report on the results achieved.

Until this information is published in a complete and comprehensible form, transparency remains merely declaratory.

It is particularly troubling that the Storting itself is the body responsible for supervising public expenditure.

If the supervisory institution permits opacity in relation to its own travel, it weakens its moral authority to demand economy and accountability from other public bodies.

QUESTIONS THAT GHARAHKHANI, THE STORTING, AND THE LABOUR PARTY MUST ANSWER

The public is entitled to demand written answers to the following questions:

1. What was the total cost of Masud Gharahkhani’s visit to the United States from 4 to 9 July 2024?

2. Does the published amount of NOK 490,000 include only the expenses of the four accompanying employees?

3. What was the cost of Gharahkhani’s own travel?

4. What were the expenses of the other members of the parliamentary delegation?

5. Who decided that four employees should accompany the President of the Storting?

6. What duties did each accompanying employee perform?

7. Why was business class selected for the employees?

8. Were less expensive airline tickets considered?

9. In which hotels did the participants stay, and how much did the rooms cost?

10. What exactly was included in the approximately NOK 127,000 spent on transport, taxis, and sightseeing?

11. Who participated in the sightseeing?

12. How was the sightseeing connected with the performance of official duties?

13. Did a detailed daily schedule exist?

14. How much time was occupied by official engagements?

15. What specific benefits did the visit produce for Norway?

16. Why was the President accompanied by five employees during the subsequent visit to the United States?

17. What cost-saving measures were introduced after the reports published by Dagens Næringsliv?

18. Was the expenditure discussed by the Presidium of the Storting?

19. Did the Labour Party demand an explanation from its senior representative?

20. Is Masud Gharahkhani prepared voluntarily to publish the complete set of invoices and official justifications?

Silence in response to these questions would mean that those in power demand transparency from citizens while refusing to apply the same standard to themselves.

WHAT MUST BE CHANGED

Concrete measures are required:

1. Full publication of expenditure relating to every foreign visit by the President of the Storting.

2. Separate disclosure of the expenses of every politician and every accompanying employee.

3. Economy class as a mandatory rule for administrative employees, except in exceptional cases supported by documented justification.

4. A limit of two accompanying employees, unless a larger group has received specific written justification.

5. A prohibition on using public funds to pay for sightseeing or other tourism-related elements.

6. Mandatory publication of the programme and final report for every expensive foreign visit.

7. Independent examination of the expenses of the Presidium and the Storting’s administration by an external supervisory body.

8. A public explanation from the Labour Party as to whether it considers this practice consistent with its declarations concerning social justice.

9. Expanded access to necessary dental care for adults who cannot afford to pay for it themselves.

10. Reform of the bureaucratic mechanisms governing social assistance that prevent citizens with reduced mobility from obtaining necessary mobility aids.

11. Clear deadlines for the consideration of applications and appeals concerning rehabilitation equipment.

12. A genuine priority for health and human independence over the administrative comfort of those in power.

NOT ONE PERSON AGAINST THE SYSTEM — SOCIETY AGAINST BUREAUCRATIC INDIFFERENCE

This article was not written for the purpose of obtaining an exceptional privilege for one person.

I am not asking the state to help only me and forget everyone else.

I demand a state in which every citizen who needs dentures, a mobility aid, medical treatment, or social assistance can receive timely and dignified support.

My situation is only one point on an immense map of human hardship.

Behind every statistical unit stands a living person.

Behind the figure of 355,000 are people continuing to live with pain, damaged teeth, and an impaired ability to eat normally.

Behind decisions concerning mobility scooters are people who cannot leave their homes independently and buy groceries.

Behind low-income statistics are families choosing which essential bill to pay this month and which to postpone.

Criticism of Masud Gharahkhani’s expensive visits is therefore not a personal grievance or a private financial dispute.

It is a demand to change the system of priorities.

The effectiveness of the state must be measured not by the number of foreign visits, but by the number of people whom it has genuinely helped to preserve their health, dignity, and independence.

THOSE IN POWER RUN — THE CITIZENS ARE LEFT BEHIND

The photograph of Masud Gharahkhani in Washington is symbolic precisely because of its outward sense of tranquillity.

The President of the Storting runs freely and confidently.

His stay has been organised.

His route has been secured.

Beside him stands an administrative system capable of purchasing tickets, booking hotels, assigning accompanying employees, paying for transport, and ensuring the implementation of the programme.

A citizen with reduced mobility, meanwhile, remains at home because that person cannot afford a scooter.

A citizen postpones obtaining dentures because that person cannot pay for the treatment.

A single parent chooses between visiting the dentist and meeting the needs of a child.

A recipient of disability benefits is forced to economise on basic necessities.

A pensioner reads the official rules, gathers documents, approaches public institutions, and encounters new bureaucratic obstacles.

Those in power, meanwhile, continue to fly.

This is why I refuse to regard this photograph as an innocent sporting image.

For me, it is an image of political distance.

It is a photograph of a state capable of providing its senior representative with a comfortable stay across the ocean, but not always capable of ensuring that its own citizens can obtain dental treatment, move independently, and preserve their human dignity.

It is a photograph of the Labour Party, which has historically claimed to speak on behalf of ordinary people but does not demonstrate sufficient rigour in relation to the expenditure of one of its own senior representatives.

It is a photograph of Masud Gharahkhani, who must understand that every publicly financed ticket, every hotel room, and every accompanying employee exists at the expense of public resources.

I do not demand that politicians stop exercising.

I demand that a politician running freely through Washington should not forget the people who, because they lack a necessary mobility aid, cannot travel independently even to the nearest grocery shop.

I do not demand a prohibition on international meetings.

I demand an end to the practice under which the words “official visit” open the public treasury, while the words “dentures,” “disability,” “reduced mobility,” and “everyday independence” initiate an endless bureaucratic procedure.

As long as this injustice continues, the President of the Storting’s jog through Washington will be perceived not solely as a personal sporting activity, but as a symbol of a government running ahead while leaving its own citizens far behind.

Masud Gharahkhani, the Labour Party, the Storting, and the public authorities must explain publicly why the machinery of state can readily find hundreds of thousands of kroner for a politician’s foreign entourage, while hundreds of thousands of people in Norway remain unable to obtain or independently finance medical treatment and necessary rehabilitation equipment.

This is not a question of envy.

It is a question of social justice, budgetary responsibility, and the moral right of those in power to demand the trust of the people.

Those in power run through Washington. But it is not one person who is left behind—hundreds of thousands of Norwegian citizens remain behind, compelled by the social welfare system to struggle alone against illness, poverty, reduced mobility, and bureaucratic indifference.