INTEGRATION WITHOUT DEMONSTRATED RESULTS
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SYSTEMIC CRISIS OF STATE INTEGRATION POLICY AND THE INSTITUTIONAL RISKS OF UNCONTROLLED DISTRIBUTION OF PUBLIC GRANTS (2000–2026)
This institutional and legal study is devoted to a comprehensive analysis of the long-term functioning of the system for distributing public integration grants in the Kingdom of Norway, which for more than a quarter of a century developed under conditions of insufficient independent external auditing. The question of the effectiveness of public spending allocated to the sociocultural adaptation of migrants has ceased to be merely a narrow bureaucratic issue and has moved into the sphere of the constitutional accountability of the executive authorities to society. The absence of transparent barriers between the state apparatus, municipal structures, and subsidy recipients created conditions conducive to the entrenchment of closed models of governance.
The relevance of this study is determined by the need for a legal assessment of a prolonged crisis of accountability in which formal indicators of administrative success have completely displaced objective social outcomes. Over the course of 26 years, from 2000 to September 2026, a stable nomenklatura network developed in the Buskerud region, concentrating financial resources, administrative powers, and mechanisms of political mobilisation in the same hands. Public funds generated by taxpayers were systematically directed towards supporting intermediary structures whose actual representativeness and practical effectiveness raise serious legal questions.
The central object of critical analysis is the phenomenon of the long-term combination of official, grant-funded, and party-political roles by key actors in the integration process. When the same leader simultaneously heads a public council (Buskerud Innvandrerråd), serves as an employee of the integration team of a government agency (NAV Øvre Eiker), and actively participates in the activities of the governing political party (Arbeiderpartiet), the fundamental principle of administrative neutrality is undermined. The absence of a verifiable “firewall” between these functions creates direct risks of conflicts of interest and the misuse of public resources.
The legal hypothesis of the study is based on the assumption of the possible existence of systemic manipulation of financial and organisational reporting aimed at artificially maintaining an uninterrupted flow of subsidies. When the evaluation of programme effectiveness is replaced by the formal approval of financial statements, a closed cycle of mutual legitimation emerges. Donor agencies such as the Directorate of Integration and Diversity (IMDi), together with municipal authorities, effectively accepted the declarations of funding recipients at face value without requiring primary documentation or independent verification of results.
Particular attention in the monograph is devoted to analysing the financial flows of the Buskerud Immigrant Council (BIR), whose aggregated reports for selected years demonstrate turnovers amounting to millions of Norwegian kroner despite the declared absence of permanent employees. A selective analysis identified expenditures totalling NOK 4,757,564.78, a substantial portion of which was allocated under internal categories such as “project management,” “consultancy services,” and “compensation for participation in meetings.” Such a budget structure, in which more than half of the funds are absorbed by the administrative apparatus itself, requires an in-depth forensic audit to identify the ultimate beneficiaries of each transaction.
The institutional crisis is aggravated by the long-term use of fictitious quantitative indicators that migrated from one official document to another without any verification. BIR’s claims that it represented the interests of “more than 30 organisations and approximately 4,000 individual members” were mechanically reproduced in annual reports and even incorporated into the minutes of public authorities such as NAV Vest-Viken. The absence of deduplication of membership lists, a genuine audit of the membership base, and confirmation of the payment of membership fees indicates a high probability that the scale of the organisation was artificially inflated in order to obtain preferential treatment.
From a legal perspective, an investigation into the mechanisms by which so-called “formal events” were conducted is critically important. There are reasonable grounds to assume that a significant proportion of subsidised conferences, round tables, and seminars, including off-site events such as the council meeting in Istanbul in 2016, were exclusively declarative in nature. Holding meetings in half-empty halls attended by a narrow circle of connected individuals and subsequently producing glossy reports containing photographs cannot be regarded as fulfilment of a government integration contract.
The analysis demonstrates that the standard financial audit frequently invoked by grant beneficiaries is fundamentally incapable of detecting concealed abuses. An ordinary auditor’s opinion merely confirms that the financial statements comply with formal accounting rules; it does not examine political neutrality, the market justification of contractors’ prices, the actual attendance of participants at events, or the absence of duplicate charging of the same expenditures to different grant lines. Uncovering such mechanisms requires intervention by the Office of the Auditor General of Norway (Riksrevisjonen) and the prosecutorial authorities.
The political conversion of integration resources represents a direct threat to democratic institutions. The use of official contacts with vulnerable groups of refugees, obtained through public service at NAV, for subsequent party-political mobilisation and the securing of electoral support at the municipal and national levels violates laws governing public service and the protection of personal data. The state is obliged to conduct an independent examination of access logs within information systems in order to exclude the possibility that restricted databases have been used for narrow party-political interests.
The study examines in detail the phenomenon of continuity in family and regional political capital, using as an example the career advancement of individuals emerging from the grant-funded environment into the highest legislative bodies of the country. The intertwining of the interests of local nomenklatura distributing integration funds with party mechanisms for nominating candidates to the Storting results in the effective destruction of open political competition. Uncontested votes for the highest offices of state demonstrate that actual personnel decisions are made within closed inter-party groups relying on a long-established financial infrastructure of grant recipients.
In parallel, the study examines the national dimension of this problem through the activities of other major recipients of integration subsidies, such as the organisation LIM under the leadership of Sarah Gaulin. The annual direct allocation of NOK 2,000,000 in operational support without a transparent competitive selection process or rigorous criteria for evaluating effectiveness resulted in the termination of funding in 2026 provoking intense political pressure from associated members of Parliament. This supports the hypothesis that systemic lobbying exists to protect the interests of professional intermediaries representing migrant communities.
The methodology of the study includes a step-by-step deconstruction of the regulatory and legal framework governing introductory programmes (Introduksjonsloven / Integreringsloven) at the municipal level, particularly in Øvre Eiker and Hokksund. Empirical data indicate that compulsory language courses frequently became an instrument for the formal retention of budgetary quotas. Instead of genuine education that took account of refugees’ existing educational backgrounds, qualified professionals encountered a standardised, paternalistic approach leading to professional deskilling and the perpetuation of welfare dependency.
Particular legal and ethical scrutiny in the monograph is devoted to documented testimony concerning the use of the educational time of adult immigrants for performing cleaning and maintenance work in municipal premises. The incorporation of cleaning duties into the educational process without lawful administrative grounds or financial compensation indicates an abuse of the vulnerable position of students. Under conditions of administrative and linguistic dependency, the absence of open protests cannot be interpreted as voluntary consent but constitutes an indication of institutional coercion.
The economic dead end of the existing integration model is manifested in the catastrophic growth of migrants’ long-term dependence on NAV social benefits. Instead of achieving the principal benchmark of success—enabling households to become self-sufficient—the state apparatus financed overlapping projects for decades, concealing actual unemployment. Public funds were spent on reproducing the bureaucratic superstructure itself, while the level of marginalisation in enclaves of Eastern Norway continued to increase.
The failure of supervisory mechanisms resulted in the formation of persistent parallel societies in Oslo and the surrounding districts. The absence of rigorous control over integration outcomes led to the displacement of national legislation and civic values by closed clan-based and religious traditions. These processes of spatial and cultural segregation are rapidly bringing the region closer to the critical scenarios observed in neighbouring Scandinavian countries, undermining citizens’ confidence in the state’s law-enforcement and legal systems.
The criminological analysis incorporated into the study directly links the educational and economic vacuum generated by ineffective IMDi programmes with a sharp increase in ethnic crime among minors. The loss of control over public safety in the streets of cities in Eastern Norway, the increase in armed attacks, and open drug trafficking became a direct consequence of integration centres being preoccupied with absorbing budgetary funds rather than carrying out genuine work on youth adaptation. The state missed the point at which local social discontent developed into organised aggression against public order.
The manipulation of statistical macro-trends by specialised ministries and loyal media outlets is assessed in the study as an attempt to conceal the scale of institutional collapse. The deliberate dilution of data concerning the correlation between uncontrolled migration flows and the deterioration of the crime situation only intensifies public scepticism. Citizens encounter a worsening security situation on a daily basis, turning official reports of “integration successes” into a manifestation of administrative hypocrisy towards the electorate.
A separate legal focus is directed at the practice of opaque international and domestic contacts between high-ranking public officials and representatives of foreign opposition circles and diasporas without proper recording in official registers. Meetings between the President of the Storting and figures such as Reza and Noor Pahlavi in 2025–2026, discussions concerning the future political structure of third countries, and investment projects conducted without an explicit parliamentary mandate demonstrate a habitual tendency to operate outside established standards of transparency. Any use of official status, security protection, and public resources must leave a clear documentary trail.
The constitutional responsibility of the Storting under Article 75(f) of the Constitution of Norway (Grunnloven) imposes upon legislators a direct obligation to prevent administrative arbitrariness by the executive authorities. The long-standing formal approval of budgets without cross-checking their effectiveness has resulted in the degradation of Parliament’s supervisory function. This monograph proposes a legal framework for the compulsory deprivation of government agencies of the right to exercise so-called “administrative discretion” where its consequence is the undermining of public safety and the misuse of resources amounting to trillions.
A conceptual solution to the crisis requires the complete dismantling of the existing philosophy governing grant distribution. A transition to evidence-based policymaking means that no regional council or public organisation may be entitled to the automatic continuation of funding merely on the basis of its long-standing existence. Every cent allocated must be strictly linked to verifiable indicators: the level of formal employment among beneficiaries, reductions in recidivist crime, and confirmed proficiency in the official language.
Within the framework of the proposed investigation, primary bank statements, BIR general ledgers, and archival materials transferred to the State Archives (Statsarkivet) in Kongsberg should be subject to priority seizure and preservation. Comparison of the electronic metadata of annual reports would make it possible to establish the extent of any falsification of reporting and the practice of mechanically copying texts from year to year. The preservation of digital traces and correspondence in personal email accounts used for the official registration of participants, such as the personal Hotmail account of the BIR chairman, is a critically important step in preventing the destruction of evidence.
The legal consequences of identifying substantial discrepancies between declared indicators and primary documentation should include the compulsory clawback of unlawfully obtained subsidies. Liability, both financial and criminal, must extend not only to the leaders of public organisations that provided inaccurate information, but also to public officials whose criminal negligence in reviewing reports allowed such a scheme to function for 26 years. Institutional protection based on “good intentions” can no longer serve as a legal shield.
The author emphasises that this study does not seek to make a priori accusations against specific individuals, but rather defends the presumption that every entity operating at the intersection of public-fund distribution and the management of vulnerable population groups must be subject to mandatory verification. The maturity of a state governed by the rule of law is measured by its capacity openly to acknowledge and investigate systemic failures within its own administrative apparatus. Refusal to conduct a transparent forensic audit would amount to a de facto abandonment of the principles of the rule of law in favour of nomenklatura self-preservation.
The structure of the monograph proceeds from general theoretical principles of constitutional oversight to a detailed examination of specific regional cases in Buskerud and Eastern Norway. Every thesis is supported by cross-checking available legislation, financial reports, and witness testimony. The author expresses the hope that the material collected will provide a basis for the establishment of an independent parliamentary commission of inquiry by the Storting and the initiation of a comprehensive criminal-law investigation by the law-enforcement authorities of the Kingdom.
The Introduction defines the methodological boundaries, conceptual framework, and evidentiary basis of the study, establishing that the 26-year period of uncontrolled operation of integration grants has reached its logical and legal dead end. The reliability of the information upon which the state bases key financial and administrative decisions has moved to the forefront, demanding a rigorous answer to the question: what in the history of state integration policy constituted proven fact, and what was a decades-long fiction created by the recipients of public funds themselves?
The problem in the case of Bijan Gharahkhani lies not so much in the number of positions he held simultaneously as in the particular institutional spheres that those positions connected. Buskerud Innvandrerråd operated within the sphere of the allocation and utilisation of public funding; NAV Øvre Eiker exercised administrative authority in relation to individuals dependent upon the state system of social support and integration; while municipal-level activities within Arbeiderpartiet belonged directly to the sphere of political competition and the formation of electoral support. The convergence of these three areas in the activities of a single individual created not an ordinary situation of professional multitasking, but a potentially closed circuit of influence: public resources, civic intermediation, and party-political activity converged at a single point. It is precisely for this reason that the subject of legal assessment should not be the formal titles of the positions themselves, but the actual possibility of transferring information, contacts, administrative authority, and public resources between spheres that, in a state governed by the rule of law, should remain functionally separate.
The principal question for the state authorities is therefore different: what specific safeguards existed within this system? It is insufficient merely to state that BIR was an independent civic organisation, NAV a government agency, and Arbeiderpartiet a political party. It is necessary to establish, through documentary evidence, how this separation was ensured in practice when one individual was simultaneously active within all three institutional environments. Were there written rules governing conflicts of interest, restrictions on access to and use of official information, recusal procedures, registration of outside activities, supervision by immediate superiors, and independent verification of compliance with these requirements? If the state is unable to produce such documents and the results of such inspections, the problem assumes a considerably more serious character: the formal separation of organisations ceases to constitute evidence of the actual separation of functions.
The most vulnerable party within this arrangement was neither the government agencies nor the political organisations, but the refugees themselves. A person who has recently arrived in the country, has insufficient command of the language, and depends upon decisions of the public administration concerning housing, benefits, and integration measures is objectively in an unequal position in relation to a public official. It is therefore of fundamental importance to determine whether such an individual was able freely to distinguish administrative interaction with NAV from an invitation to participate in a civic organisation or from contact of a party-political nature. What is required here is an examination not of assumptions, but of digital and documentary traces: access logs for information systems, procedures for compiling contact lists, the legal grounds for transferring personal data, mechanisms used to invite individuals to events, and the origin of the claimed membership base. Without such verification, it is impossible convincingly to exclude the possibility that administrative dependency was used as a resource for civic or political mobilisation.
A quarter of a century of the existence of such a model transforms the question of responsibility from a personal into an institutional one. If, between 2000 and 2026, the competent authorities failed to establish transparent boundaries between a grant recipient, public service, and party-political activity, responsibility for the resulting deficit of oversight cannot be reduced exclusively to the conduct of a single functionary. It extends to the heads of the relevant agencies, grant-awarding bodies, municipal authorities, and supervisory structures that should have identified in a timely manner the evident risk arising from the intersection of interests. Particularly critical is the absence of a documentary record of such oversight accessible to the public. A state that annually requires recipients of public funds to submit reports must itself demonstrate what risks it identified, what questions it asked, what documents it examined, and on what grounds it continued to regard the existing arrangement as acceptable.
The financial dimension of the problem requires an equally different standard of assessment. The mere fact that funds were recorded in financial statements and formally spent under approved budget categories says nothing in itself about the public effectiveness of integration policy. Over a period of 26 years, state funding imposed a specific financial cost upon taxpayers; consequently, the result must be equally specific and verifiable. The effectiveness of expenditure should have been determined not by photographs of events, not by the number of meetings held, and not by statements repeated year after year concerning the representation of thousands of migrants, but by verified indicators of employment, language acquisition, economic self-sufficiency, and sustainable social integration. If multimillion-kroner financial flows are documented considerably more thoroughly than the public outcome for which those funds were allocated, it becomes necessary to trace the movement of funds to their ultimate recipients, examine related contracts, compensation payments, consultants, and administrative expenditure, and establish what proportion of the budget actually reached the intended target group.
Finally, the political dimension of this matter cannot be considered separately from its administrative and financial dimensions. Bijan Gharahkhani’s long-standing simultaneous presence within BIR, the NAV Øvre Eiker system, and the regional environment of Arbeiderpartiet objectively created an infrastructure in which social contacts with migrants could acquire political value. The matter requiring examination, therefore, is not an abstract assertion of party-political influence, but the specific mechanism through which integration resources may have been converted into electoral resources: who organised political events, how lists of invitees were compiled, whether those lists overlapped with participants in integration programmes, and whether premises, working time, contacts, or other resources associated with public funding were used. If state and supervisory authorities failed to examine these questions throughout the period from 2000 to 2026, then the central problem concerns not merely the activities of an individual, but the system’s inability to demonstrate that state integration policy was not being transformed into an infrastructure for reproducing regional party-political influence. It is precisely this question that requires an independent documentary and financial audit and, should indications of unlawful conduct be identified, an appropriate legal assessment by the competent authorities.
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Who Has Been Spending Buskerud’s Integration Funds for Decades, Combining Governmental, Grant-Funded, and Party-Political Roles—and Why Taxpayers Have Still Not Received a Comprehensive Audit
Bijan Gharahkhani, Buskerud Innvandrerråd, NAV Øvre Eiker, Arbeiderpartiet, Sarah Gaulin/LIM, and the Political Continuation of Family Influence at the Level of the Storting
Documentary and Analytical Audit Article
Period Covered by the Study: 2000–2 September 2026
By Doctor of Philosophy Mayer Meir Kaltenbrunner © 2026
INTRODUCTION
TWENTY-SIX YEARS OF MONEY, POSITIONS, AND UNVERIFIED RESULTS
For more than two decades, a system existed in Buskerud in which the same personal and organisational networks were simultaneously positioned close to government grants, municipal structures, vulnerable groups of refugees, party-political mobilisation, and the distribution of public representation.
Bijan Gharahkhani occupied a central place within this system.
He was not merely the head of a voluntary public organisation. For years, he combined the leadership of Buskerud Innvandrerråd with employment in the integration team at NAV Øvre Eiker, participation in municipal politics, and activity within Arbeiderpartiet.
It is precisely this combination of roles that requires not symbolic trust or ceremonial awards, but enhanced financial, administrative, and conflict-of-interest scrutiny.
Bijan Gharahkhani was simultaneously positioned:
within an organisation receiving public funding;
within the government system responsible for assisting and resettling refugees;
within a political party interested in securing electoral support;
within the municipal political environment;
within a network of organisations claiming to represent migrant communities.
These are not four separate biographies. They are four intersecting sources of influence concentrated in the hands of one person.
The state was obliged to ask an obvious question: who, and by means of what document, separated official contact through NAV from the public activities of BIR and the party-political interests of Arbeiderpartiet?
Where was the verifiable firewall?
Who controlled the contact lists?
Who examined the access logs?
Who ensured that a refugee dependent upon decisions made by NAV understood the difference between a government social worker, the chair of an immigrant organisation, and a party politician?
Comprehensive answers to these questions are not publicly available.
This is not a minor technical omission. It is the principal defect of the entire system.
THE PUBLIC MONEY WAS REAL—THE DEMONSTRATED RESULT REMAINED OBSCURE
BIR’s financial documents reveal not imaginary but real financial flows.
For the nine years for which comparable figures could be obtained, the organisation’s income amounted to NOK 4,757,564.78, while its expenditure amounted to NOK 4,916,396.49.
This calculation covers only selected years: 2013–2016 and 2020–2024. It does not cover the entire period from 2000 to 2026 and therefore does not constitute the final total of government funding.
Accordingly, the first question addressed to IMDi, Buskerud/Viken County Council, the municipalities, and BIR must be formulated with absolute precision:
What was the total amount of funding transferred to BIR from the beginning of the period under examination, from which budgetary lines did it originate, and to whom exactly was it paid?
This question cannot be answered by yet another list of conferences, meetings, and ceremonial events.
The taxpayer has the right to see:
every grant decision;
the date on which the funds were actually received;
the recipient’s bank account;
the contract;
the supplier;
the ultimate beneficiary;
the signatory;
any conflict of interest;
proof of performance;
the measurable result.
Until such an interconnected register exists, public reporting remains a collection of fragmented PDF files rather than a complete system of accountability.
2021: A SHARP INCREASE IN INCOME AND MAJOR INSUFFICIENTLY DISCLOSED EXPENDITURE ITEMS
The year 2021 requires particular attention.
BIR’s income reached NOK 1,316,977, while expenditure amounted to NOK 1,247,657.43.
The reported sources of income included:
NOK 625,000 from IMDi;
NOK 260,000 from Viken County Council;
NOK 348,000 through Kompetanse Norge;
NOK 60,000 from the voluntary sector;
NOK 21,777 in value-added tax compensation;
membership fees and other income.
These amounts require a line-by-line audit rather than a general description.
The expenditure section included:
NOK 359,726.20 for courses, literature, and printed materials;
NOK 165,000 for project employees;
NOK 90,000 for project management;
NOK 96,500 for organisation and implementation;
NOK 92,000 for accounting and financial management;
NOK 62,400 in compensation for participation in meetings;
approximately NOK 87,000 in premises-related expenses.
Even a straightforward listing of these figures raises mandatory audit questions.
Who received NOK 165,000 as a project employee?
Who received NOK 90,000 for project management?
What specific services were provided for NOK 96,500?
What accounting operations required expenditure of NOK 92,000?
To whom was compensation for participation in meetings paid?
Who owned or controlled the premises?
Which suppliers received money for courses, literature, and printing?
Were any of the recipients members of the board, their relatives, party colleagues, or organisations connected to BIR’s leadership?
Without the names of recipients, contracts, invoices, certificates of completed work, and declarations of interest, these items cannot be regarded as sufficiently transparent merely because aggregate figures appeared in an annual report.
Financial transparency does not consist merely of naming an expenditure category. Financial transparency means the ability to trace the money to its ultimate recipient and verify the reality of the performance delivered in return.
ZERO EMPLOYEES—HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF KRONER IN SALARY AND FEE CATEGORIES
The accounts for 2022–2024 raise equally serious questions.
The documents stated that the organisation had no employees. At the same time, the accounts continued to contain substantial amounts grouped under categories relating to salaries, organisation, project management, board remuneration, participation in meetings, accounting, and consultants.
In 2022, BIR’s income amounted to NOK 799,340, while expenditure amounted to NOK 954,300.08. The year ended with a deficit of approximately NOK 155,000.
At the same time, approximately NOK 250,000 was presented as salary expenditure distributed between organisation, accounting, and project management.
To whom exactly was this money paid if the organisation reported having no employees?
Were the recipients self-employed contractors?
Were civil-law service contracts concluded?
Was a competitive procurement procedure conducted?
Did members of the board declare any personal interests?
Who determined the level of remuneration?
Who certified the number of hours worked?
In 2023, income amounted to NOK 839,770.78, while expenditure amounted to NOK 800,851.92. Despite the organisation once again reporting zero employees, approximately NOK 152,842.95 was included within a broad block of “salary expenses” encompassing a consultant, board remuneration, participation in meetings, and audit costs.
Combining a consultant, the board, meetings, and an independent auditor within a single category makes the accounts less, not more, comprehensible. An auditor examining annual accounts and a person receiving remuneration for internal management perform fundamentally different functions. Combining them under one heading prevents the taxpayer from understanding what proportion of the money was spent on oversight, what proportion was spent on management, and what proportion was paid to specific service providers.
In 2024, income fell to NOK 415,343, while expenditure amounted to NOK 470,381.45.
The fees block reached NOK 252,305.41, including:
NOK 14,000 for accounting;
NOK 70,000 in board remuneration;
NOK 33,700 for auditing;
NOK 81,605.41 in participation compensation;
NOK 53,000 for a consultant.
This block represented approximately 53.6 per cent of the organisation’s total expenditure for the year.
When more than half of annual expenditure falls within a management and fees block, it is no longer a secondary administrative detail. It becomes the central subject of scrutiny.
Who received the NOK 70,000 on behalf of the board?
How was the NOK 81,605.41 in compensation distributed?
Who was the consultant who received NOK 53,000?
What was the subject matter of that consultant’s contract?
Why did an organisation established to represent immigrant associations spend such a substantial proportion of its annual budget on a management and fees block?
What measurable public result was produced by the remaining portion of the budget?
This is where a genuine audit must begin.
AN ORDINARY AUDIT DOES NOT ANSWER THE PRINCIPAL QUESTIONS
BIR may refer to unmodified audit opinions. However, an ordinary opinion on annual accounts is not a certificate of party-political neutrality, programme effectiveness, or the absence of related-party transactions.
It does not automatically answer the following questions:
whether the reported participants were real;
whether the same event was charged to several grants;
whether the price of services corresponded to market rates;
whether contractors were connected to the organisation’s leadership;
whether government contacts were used for party-political purposes;
whether the declared social result was achieved;
whether the activity was necessary on the reported scale;
whether the same result could have been achieved at a lower cost;
who personally received the money.
It is therefore unacceptable to cite an ordinary financial audit as definitive proof of the integrity of the entire model.
If the suspicion concerns fictitious participants, double funding, the return of funds to related parties, or the use of government access, what is required is not a standard examination of the annual balance sheet, but an expanded forensic audit of primary documents and banking transactions.
BIJAN GHARAHKHANI: NOT MERELY A “VOLUNTEER,” BUT A NEXUS OF INFLUENCE
A critical assessment of Bijan Gharahkhani must be based neither on his origins nor on his family biography. It must be based on the scale of the roles accumulated in his hands.
For many years, he combined:
1. the leadership of BIR;
2. work with refugees at NAV Øvre Eiker;
3. activity within Arbeiderpartiet;
4. participation in municipal politics;
5. access to consultative bodies;
6. public representation of immigrant organisations;
7. participation in shaping the integration-policy agenda.
This was not an ordinary voluntary position.
A person who simultaneously had access to government integration mechanisms, a political party, and a network of immigrant organisations possessed considerable administrative and electoral resources.
Such resources could have been used lawfully. But that is precisely why the state was obliged to subject them to particularly rigorous scrutiny.
Where are Bijan Gharahkhani’s annual declarations of conflicts of interest?
What restrictions were imposed by NAV?
Which activities were declared to his employer as outside activities?
Who supervised his contacts with recipients of social services?
Was an independent examination of access logs ever conducted?
What measures prevented official contacts from being transferred into public or party-political activity?
What documents demonstrate that BIR and Arbeiderpartiet did not use common lists, premises, events, contractors, and information channels?
The absence of publicly available proof of abuse does not bring these questions to an end. It merely demonstrates that, without access to internal documents, the citizen is unable to verify a system financed with public money.
2009: WHERE DID ELECTORAL INFORMATION END AND PARTY-POLITICAL MOBILISATION BEGIN?
BIR’s documents for 2009 record work intended to increase electoral participation among immigrants in cooperation with IMDi.
During the same period, however, BIR was headed by a person affiliated with Arbeiderpartiet and employed within the NAV system.
It is therefore insufficient to state that this was simply a matter of providing useful information to voters.
It is necessary to establish:
which political parties participated in the events;
who compiled the lists of invited politicians;
whether the parties were granted equal access;
who prepared the information materials;
whether Arbeiderpartiet’s symbols were used;
whether contacts obtained through NAV were used;
whether campaigning took place before or after the official events;
who supervised the political neutrality of the project;
whether any complaints were submitted;
whether IMDi conducted an examination.
If a publicly funded organisation became a channel of access to a specific group of voters while its leader simultaneously participated in one particular political party, there was a direct risk that an integration resource could be converted into party-political capital.
A statement by the organisation’s own leader is insufficient to eliminate this concern. Documents are required.
2015: FUNDING WAS TERMINATED—WHY WAS IT SUBSEQUENTLY RESTORED?
In April 2015, Dagsavisen reported that the County Council had terminated its previous partnership funding of BIR.
The anticipated funding model included NOK 125,000 in government funding through IMDi and NOK 250,000 in regional support. The regional component was withdrawn.
This is a matter of fundamental importance.
Why was the funding terminated?
Was the reason inadequate reporting?
A change in priorities?
Insufficient results?
Organisational problems?
A conflict between BIR and the regional authorities?
Why was the partnership subsequently restored?
What requirements were imposed upon BIR?
What deficiencies was the organisation required to remedy?
Were those deficiencies remedied?
Who made the decision to resume funding?
The 2015 publication must not be treated as an insignificant newspaper episode. It may represent a point at which a public authority had already expressed doubts about the previous model of relations with BIR.
It is therefore necessary to disclose:
the decision terminating the support;
internal official correspondence;
the assessment of previous results;
minutes of negotiations;
the conditions governing restoration;
the subsequent monitoring of compliance with those conditions.
Without these documents, the public sees only the disappearance of the money and its subsequent return, but not the administrative reasoning behind the decision.
THE ISTANBUL SEMINAR AND THE PROBLEM OF ACCOUNTABILITY
The 2016 report records a board seminar held in Istanbul at a cost of NOK 15,675.90.
The amount may appear modest. However, the issue is not its size.
Why was a seminar for the board of a regional immigrant council in Buskerud held in Istanbul?
What programme required an overseas trip?
Why could an equivalent event not have been held in Norway?
How many people participated?
Who selected the location?
Who paid for the tickets and accommodation?
Was the trip combined with private purposes?
Were a report, materials, and a specific result produced?
What proportion of the expenditure was covered by public funds?
Every krone of a government grant must be connected to a purpose and a result. The description “board seminar” does not explain what benefit the target groups of an integration programme in Buskerud received from the leadership’s journey to Istanbul.
THE SUBSTITUTION OF ACTIVITY FOR RESULTS
The principal criticism of BIR and the public authorities that financed it concerns more than individual items of expenditure.
It concerns the reporting model itself.
The annual documents provide detailed lists of:
However, holding an event is not evidence that a result has been achieved.
A printed brochure does not prove that a person received protection.
A completed seminar does not prove that a participant found employment.
A podcast does not prove that the target group changed its behaviour.
A round-table discussion does not prove that negative social control was reduced.
A photograph from an event does not prove that the expenditure was necessary or effective.
The taxpayer does not finance a calendar of activities. The taxpayer finances a public result.
If, after decades of grants, the state cannot present an independent assessment of the additional effect produced, this means that the grant provider financed a process without demonstrating its effectiveness.
Responsibility for this rests not only with BIR.
It also rests with:
IMDi;
Buskerud/Viken County Council;
the municipalities;
the bodies that approved the projects;
the auditors, within the limits of their mandates;
the public officials who renewed the funding;
the politicians who publicly supported the organisation without requiring an independent assessment.
SARAH GAULIN AND LIM: A NATIONAL VERSION OF THE SAME PROBLEM
Sarah Gaulin and the organisation she leads, LIM, must not be artificially combined with BIR in the absence of a documented connection. This does not, however, mean that LIM’s activities should be removed from critical scrutiny.
LIM was a major recipient of national integration funding.
In 2023, the organisation received:
NOK 2,000,000 in direct operating support;
NOK 127,713 in value-added tax compensation.
In 2024, it received:
NOK 2,000,000 in operating support through IMDi;
NOK 175,951 in value-added tax compensation.
When a single organisation receives two million kroner in annual operating support, the state is obliged to demonstrate more than its media presence and participation in public debate.
It is obliged to disclose:
the structure of expenditure;
salaries and fees;
contractors;
the cost of individual events;
the circle of beneficiaries;
measurable results;
the assessment methodology;
the political and organisational connections of the leadership;
related-party transactions;
the grounds for continuing the support.
In 2026, LIM did not receive its previous operating support under the new competitive funding scheme. The funding of LIM and other organisations subsequently became the subject of political pressure and dispute in the Storting.
This requires a separate investigation.
What scores did LIM’s application receive?
Which organisations received higher scores?
Which specific criteria did LIM fail to satisfy?
Which politicians argued for the restoration of its funding?
Were there prior party-political connections between the leaders of the organisations and the persons applying political pressure over the budget?
Why was an organisation that had received millions of kroner for years unable to continue its activities without permanent direct government support?
If LIM genuinely produced a demonstrated public result, IMDi is obliged to show that result.
If no demonstrated result existed, Parliament is obliged to explain on what grounds politicians demanded that the previous funding be restored.
DID A CONNECTION EXIST BETWEEN SARAH GAULIN AND THE GHARAHKHANI NETWORK?
No direct contract, payment, or joint application linking Sarah Gaulin to BIR has yet been found in the publicly available documents.
However, the absence of a document discovered thus far must not be used as a prohibition against further examination.
To establish or exclude such a connection, it is necessary to compare:
the composition of the respective boards;
project working groups;
joint events;
grant applications;
contractors;
consultants;
payments;
political correspondence;
participation in Arbeiderpartiet committees;
common lobbyists;
references in IMDi records;
mutual support in the distribution of grants.
If there was no connection, that absence should be documented.
If joint projects or coordinated actions existed, they must be identified.
The criticism here is not directed at the Iranian origins of particular individuals. It is directed at the possible existence of a network of professional grant recipients and political intermediaries that may have reproduced its own influence for decades through public funding.
THE POLITICAL CONTINUATION OF FAMILY INFLUENCE
Masud Gharahkhani does not bear automatic responsibility for his father’s activities. His political career, however, cannot be analysed in artificial isolation from the family’s regional political capital.
For years, Bijan Gharahkhani operated among immigrant organisations, voters, municipal structures, and Arbeiderpartiet. Masud Gharahkhani began his political career within precisely this regional environment.
Arbeiderpartiet is therefore obliged to disclose:
whether Bijan Gharahkhani participated in nomination processes concerning his son;
what recommendations he made;
with whom he conducted negotiations;
whether he mobilised member organisations;
whether representatives of BIR participated in party meetings;
which candidates competed with Masud;
which criteria were applied;
which conflicts of interest were declared.
Without these documents, unlawful nepotism cannot be proved. But neither can the existence of family political capital be denied merely because party negotiations took place behind closed doors.
When Masud Gharahkhani once again became the sole candidate for the office of President of the Storting in 2025, 150 members voted for him, while 15 ballots were left blank.
Formally, a vote took place.
Political competition did not.
The highest parliamentary office had effectively been determined before the public vote through a closed party and inter-party mechanism.
That is precisely why the family, party-political, and regional origins of political advancement constitute a legitimate subject of public scrutiny.
CONTACTS WITH REZA AND NOOR PAHLAVI: A HABIT OF ACTING WITHOUT A COMPLETE PUBLIC RECORD
Masud Gharahkhani’s meetings with Reza and Noor Pahlavi belong to another sphere, but they reveal the same institutional defect: politically significant actions take place before the public receives complete information about their status.
In March 2025, Reza Pahlavi publicly reported a meeting with Masud Gharahkhani and stated that the situation of the Iranian people, the Iran Prosperity Project, and investment opportunities had been discussed.
This raises the following questions:
who initiated the meeting;
why it was not clearly reflected in the original official programme;
in what capacity Gharahkhani participated;
whether Storting transport, security, and staff were used;
whether an official record was prepared;
whether matters relating to the future political order of Iran were discussed;
who authorised the President of the Storting to conduct such a discussion;
whether Gharahkhani’s position was personal, party-political, or governmental.
Contact with a foreign opposition figure is not, in itself, a criminal offence. However, the head of the national Parliament cannot move freely between official, party-political, diaspora-related, and private roles without leaving the public a clear documentary answer.
The meeting with Noor Pahlavi in the Storting building in 2026 reinforced the necessity of establishing a uniform procedure for registering such contacts.
The issue concerning the Pahlavis in this article is neither their origin nor the family’s political views. The issue is the use of access to the highest-ranking parliamentary office-holder without sufficient transparency concerning the status, objectives, resources, and subsequent actions involved.
PRINCIPAL ACCUSATORY CONCLUSION
The system under examination cannot be justified by references to good intentions, integration, public dialogue, or the personal popularity of its participants.
Over the decades during which this model existed:
public money was allocated;
organisations created paid infrastructures;
leaders acquired political visibility;
political parties gained access to migrant communities;
intermediaries accumulated administrative capital;
particular families acquired public and political influence;
senior offices were distributed through closed party mechanisms.
Yet the public has still not been presented with a single independent audit that simultaneously examines:
1. every source of funding;
2. the ultimate recipients;
3. related parties;
4. the reality of the reported activities;
5. the absence of double funding;
6. access to NAV data;
7. party-political neutrality;
8. the involvement of family connections;
9. the measurable results of the programmes;
10. the subsequent political use of the influence accumulated.
The absence of an established criminal case does not prove the integrity of the system when the absence of a thorough investigation constitutes its principal defect.
This is not a question of presuming particular individuals guilty.
It is a question of the presumption of mandatory verifiability applicable to everyone who has spent decades at the intersection of public money, vulnerable groups, party-political interests, and political power.
Legal status of the formulations: information concerning positions, amounts, decisions, and meetings is presented as documented fact; possible fictitious performance, double funding, use of official access, payments to related parties, and the party-political conversion of grants are treated as verifiable audit hypotheses that must be confirmed or disproved through primary documents and an independent investigation.
SEPARATE SUPPLEMENT
4,000 “MEMBERS,” DOZENS OF “ORGANIZATIONS,” AND TWENTY YEARS OF STATE TRUST
Why Buskerud Innvandrerråd’s Own Statements Should No Longer Be Accepted as Evidence and Require a Comprehensive Financial, Administrative, and Legal Review
By Doctor of Philosophy Mayer Meir Kaltenbrunner
SELF-REPORTING IS NOT EVIDENCE
In the long history of Buskerud Innvandrerråd, there is a fundamental problem that has, until now, effectively remained in the shadow of conferences, ceremonial speeches, awards, newspaper publications, and annual reports.
Public authorities must finally answer an elementary question:
On what basis did they, for decades, accept BIR’s quantitative and qualitative claims about itself?
Buskerud Innvandrerråd repeatedly stated that it represented more than 30 immigrant organizations and approximately 4,000 individual members.
BIR’s annual report for 2014 explicitly states that there were 31 member organizations and at the same time refers to approximately 4,000 individual members.
The annual report for 2020 once again repeats the formula of more than 30 organizations and approximately 4,000 individual members.
Virtually the same formula is retained in the annual report for 2022: more than 30 organizations and approximately 4,000 individual members.
In the official minutes of the NAV Vest-Viken user committee from March 2023, the representative of Buskerud Innvandrerråd likewise stated:
“Buskerud innvandrerråd har 4000 medlemmer” — Buskerud Innvandrerråd has 4,000 members.
Thus, the figure “4,000” has for years travelled from BIR’s own documents into the public sphere and even into official government records.
But repetition of a figure is not an audit of that figure.
Four thousand people do not come into existence merely because the chair of an organization wrote the figure “4,000” in an annual report.
For this number to be recognized as a verified fact, an evidentiary chain must be presented.
It is precisely this evidentiary chain that is not publicly visible.
NOT “SHOW US THE REPORT,” BUT SHOW US THE 4,000
If BIR actually represented approximately 4,000 individual members, establishing this should be extremely straightforward.
A public auditor should obtain the list of member organizations.
For each organization, the actual number of members on a specific reporting date must be established.
Those numbers must then be added together.
But even that is not sufficient.
Duplicate counting of the same person through several associations must be excluded.
Only after deduplication can one speak of the real number of individual persons standing behind the declared figure.
In other words:
4,000 must be demonstrated from the bottom up, not proclaimed from the top down.
If such a calculation exists, it should be published.
If it was never performed, the public authorities must explain why the organization’s claimed multi-thousand-member representative base was treated as credible for years without publicly visible independent verification.
WHO EXACTLY ARE THESE “MORE THAN 30 ORGANIZATIONS”?
The same question applies to the member organizations themselves.
In 2014, BIR reported 31 medlemsorganisasjoner.
In subsequent materials, the formula “more than 30 organizations” is repeatedly used.
But serious public oversight cannot be satisfied with the statement:
“more than 30.”
Each one must be identified.
Organization No. 1.
Organization No. 2.
Organization No. 3.
And so on.
For each organization, the following must be established:
full name;
organization number;
date of establishment;
legal status;
acting board;
actual place of operation;
annual meetings;
number of members;
amount of membership-fee income;
bank account;
actual activity;
date of admission to BIR;
payment of BIR membership dues;
participation in BIR voting;
receipt of funds directly from BIR;
receipt of independent government grants.
Only then can one speak not of a declared network of organizations, but of a verified one.
“PAPER” AND INACTIVE ORGANIZATIONS MUST BE SUBJECTED TO PARTICULAR SCRUTINY
The existence of an organization number does not in itself prove the existence of a genuinely functioning organization.
A legal entity may formally exist while:
having no active membership base;
holding no meetings;
collecting no membership dues;
conducting no regular activity;
being effectively dependent on one or two individuals;
appearing primarily in connection with grant-funded projects.
It is therefore necessary to establish not only the legal existence of each BIR member organization, but also the reality of its public activity during the relevant year.
Particular attention must be paid to organizations that simultaneously:
belonged to BIR;
voted at its annual meetings;
received money through BIR;
participated in BIR events;
or independently received government integration grants.
Where such overlaps existed, a complete financial and organizational map must be constructed.
TWO HUNDRED KRONER — AND THE RIGHT TO PARTICIPATE IN ELECTING THE LEADERSHIP
BIR’s own website states that membership is open to active immigrant and refugee organizations in Buskerud and that the annual membership fee is NOK 200.
The invitation to the 2024 annual meeting establishes an even more important rule:
the membership fee of NOK 200 gives the organization voting rights.
Each member organization has one vote.
This means that, in order to review BIR’s long-term governance system, it is necessary to examine not general narratives about “democratic elections,” but banking records.
Who paid the NOK 200?
When?
From which account?
On behalf of which organization?
Was that organization eligible for membership?
Who represented it at the annual meeting?
For whom did its representative vote?
Did that organization receive money or other support from BIR during the same or preceding period?
This is where a genuine audit begins.
TWENTY YEARS UNDER ONE LEADER REQUIRE NOT ADMIRATION FOR STABILITY, BUT SCRUTINY OF THE MECHANISM OF POWER
A long period of leadership in an organization is not, in itself, a violation.
But an exceptionally prolonged concentration of leadership in one person within a structure that receives public funds, participates in governmental consultative mechanisms, and claims to represent thousands of citizens requires heightened scrutiny.
All elections of the BIR chair must be reconstructed.
Not merely the last two or three years.
All of them.
For each year, the following must be established:
the number of organizations entitled to vote;
the organizations actually present;
the names of their representatives;
the candidates for chair;
the nomination procedure;
the composition of the election committee;
the voting results;
the number of votes received by each candidate;
the presence or absence of an alternative candidate;
the financial relations between BIR and the voting organizations.
If it turns out that, for decades, the chair was re-elected by a genuine, broad, and continuously changing network of independent organizations, that leads to one conclusion.
If it turns out that a limited circle of dependent or financially connected entities constituted the decisive majority year after year, that leads to a completely different conclusion.
Until the primary documents are compared, neither scenario can be treated as established.
THE CHAIR’S PERSONAL HOTMAIL ACCOUNT AS THE GATEWAY TO AN “INSTITUTIONAL” ORGANIZATION
Another detail deserves particular attention.
For registration of participants in BIR’s 2024 annual meeting, applications were to be sent to:
Gharakhani9@hotmail.com.
This may appear trivial.
It is not trivial.
If this address was used to register organizations, representatives, and participants in the annual meeting, it is necessary to establish:
who legally controlled the mailbox;
who possessed the password;
who administered the correspondence;
on which devices it was stored;
who had access to registration information;
whether membership lists were stored there;
whether personal data were stored there;
whether the information was transferred into BIR’s institutional archive;
whether another board member had independent access to the archive;
what would have happened to that information if the chair had been replaced.
An organization that claims to represent thousands of people and has interacted with government for decades should not become informationally inseparable from the private email account of a single leader.
BIR’S VERY STRUCTURE REQUIRES REVIEW FOR PERSONALIZATION OF GOVERNANCE
When the same chair, for decades:
signs documents;
comments on the organization’s activities in the media;
represents it before government;
organizes meetings;
uses a personalized email address for registration;
presents the scale of the membership base;
engages in political activity;
and at the same time has professional ties to the public integration system,
a legitimate question arises:
Did BIR exist as a genuinely institutionalized organization capable of functioning fully independently of the personality of its chair, or was the organizational infrastructure to a significant extent personalized around one individual?
The answer is not provided by Bijan Gharahkhani’s biography.
The answer lies in the archives.
Bank access rights.
Electronic systems.
Minutes.
Deputy authority.
Powers of attorney.
Changes in signatory authority.
Transfer of documentation.
Retention periods.
And the organization’s actual ability to continue operating immediately following a change in leadership.
THE PRIMARY QUESTION: DID THE REPRESENTATIVE BASE ON WHICH BIR’S AUTHORITY WAS BUILT ACTUALLY EXIST?
This must become a separate subject of investigation.
It is necessary to establish:
How many real organizations belonged to BIR each year?
How many of them actually functioned?
How many natural persons stood behind each organization?
How many individuals were duplicated across several organizations?
How were the figures of 3,000 and 4,000 calculated?
Who signed those calculations?
To whom were they submitted?
Were they verified by IMDi?
Were they verified by the county authority?
Were they verified by NAV?
Were they verified by municipalities?
If no one verified them, a systemic problem emerges:
public institutions may have interacted for decades with an organization on the basis of indicators of representativeness generated by the organization itself.
AN OFFICIAL GOVERNMENT RECORD DOES NOT TURN A STATEMENT INTO A PROVEN FACT
The mechanism of secondary legitimization of self-reporting is particularly dangerous.
The NAV Vest-Viken minutes contain the statement:
“Buskerud innvandrerråd har 4000 medlemmer.”
But the minutes do not indicate that NAV audited the 4,000 members.
In context, the information was supplied by a representative of BIR.
However, once incorporated into an official NAV document, the original statement acquires a completely different appearance.
The next journalist, politician, or official may then write:
“According to NAV documents, BIR has 4,000 members.”
An informational loop emerges:
BIR states the figure → a public authority records it → the government document begins to be used as external confirmation → the original self-declaration acquires the appearance of an independently established fact.
This mechanism must itself be investigated.
An official record should clearly distinguish between:
“the organization states that it has 4,000 members”
and
“the public authority has verified the existence of 4,000 members.”
These are fundamentally different statements.
IT IS PARTICULARLY STRIKING THAT THE FIGURE “APPROXIMATELY 4,000” WAS REPEATED ALMOST MECHANICALLY FOR YEARS
The 2014 report — approximately 4,000.
The 2015 report — approximately 4,000.
The 2020 report — approximately 4,000.
The 2022 report — approximately 4,000.
The 2023 NAV minutes — 4,000.
The persistence of the figure may have a lawful explanation.
But it also requires verification.
Over eight years:
some people must have died;
some must have moved away;
some must have left organizations;
new migrants must have arrived;
new organizations must have been formed;
older ones must have closed;
the demographic composition must have changed.
Why, then, does the aggregate public figure remain so consistently close to approximately 4,000?
Perhaps an accurate recount was performed every year and the total genuinely happened to remain close to 4,000.
If so, those annual calculations should be produced.
But if the figure was simply carried forward from one annual report to the next as a stable description of the organization, that is an entirely different situation.
And this is precisely what an audit of original files, document metadata, and membership registers must establish.
THE COPYING OF TEXT FROM YEAR TO YEAR MUST BE EXAMINED SEPARATELY
Comparison of annual reports reveals highly similar, at times almost standardized, formulations concerning:
“more than 30 organizations”;
“approximately 4,000 members”;
an “important role”;
“positive and effective integration”;
“dialogue”;
“creating arenas”;
“significant growth in activity.”
Such repetition does not, in itself, prove falsity.
But it raises a serious methodological question:
Were the underlying indicators updated annually, or was the organization’s textual self-description carried over from one report to the next?
The original electronic files of the annual reports should be obtained.
Their metadata should be examined.
Dates of creation and modification should be compared.
Membership tables should be compared.
It should be established whether new medlemsoversikt were attached.
It should be examined whether the composition of member organizations changed while the aggregate membership figure remained unchanged.
THE PHRASE “WE REPRESENT 4,000 PEOPLE” SHOULD NO LONGER BE ACCEPTED WITHOUT ASKING: WHO GAVE YOU THE MANDATE TO REPRESENT THEM?
There is another fundamental aspect.
Even if 4,000 people genuinely belonged to organizations affiliated with BIR, the nature of that representation must be established.
Did membership in a local cultural association automatically give BIR a political or public mandate to speak on that individual’s behalf?
Were individual members informed that their organization belonged to BIR?
Did the annual meeting of each organization approve membership in BIR?
Was such a decision still valid?
Could an individual opt out of such indirect representation?
When BIR’s chair spoke publicly on behalf of “4,000 members,” what internal procedures confirmed the views of those 4,000 people on the particular issue?
Or was the number used mainly as an indicator of organizational scale?
This is particularly important when the head of an umbrella organization makes politically significant statements.
The number of members and a political mandate are not the same thing.
NOT ONLY THE NUMBER OF MEMBERS, BUT THE FINANCIAL VALUE OF THAT NUMBER MUST BE EXAMINED
The next question is considerably more serious.
Was BIR’s declared representative base used:
when obtaining public funds;
when receiving operating support;
when receiving project funding;
when entering into partnership agreements;
when obtaining premises;
when being invited onto official commissions;
when being granted seats on user committees;
during political consultations?
If the answer is affirmative in even one instance, the figure “4,000” ceases to be merely a promotional formulation.
It acquires administrative and potentially financial significance.
It must then be established which government decisions may have relied upon information concerning the scale of the organization.
EVERY BIR APPLICATION FOR PUBLIC MONEY MUST BE REVIEWED
All BIR funding applications for the longest available period must be obtained.
Not annual reports published for the public.
Specifically, the applications submitted before the money was received.
For each application, every verifiable factual claim must be extracted:
number of organizations;
number of members;
number of participants in previous projects;
reach within the target group;
geography;
partners;
previous results;
planned results;
co-financing;
own resources;
volunteer hours.
Each claim must then be compared with the underlying primary document.
Only after this can it be established how closely the information used in decisions to grant public funds corresponded to the actual situation.
IT IS PARTICULARLY IMPORTANT TO COMPARE THE APPLICATION BEFORE THE MONEY WAS RECEIVED WITH THE REPORT AFTER THE MONEY WAS SPENT
This is a classic method of identifying problematic grants.
For example:
an application promises 500 participants;
the final report says “broad participation”;
but the attendance list shows 83 people.
Or:
ten events are promised;
six are held;
but the entire grant is spent.
Or:
one target group is declared;
in practice, most of the audience consists of people already regularly participating in BIR activities.
Or:
the same individuals appear on participant lists for several different projects.
It is precisely such comparisons that are capable of revealing the reality of what occurred.
Not attractive photographs.
Not newspaper articles.
Not statements by the chair.
PROJECT PARTICIPANT LISTS MUST BE CHECKED FOR REPEAT COUNTING
If BIR conducted dozens of events and projects, registration data should exist to the extent that their collection was lawful and required under the relevant funding programs.
It is necessary to establish:
whether the same core group of participants was used to substantiate several different events;
whether the same person was repeatedly counted as a new participant;
how the number of unique service recipients was determined;
whether all attendances were simply added together and then presented as the number of people reached.
For example:
100 people, each attending five events, produce:
500 attendances.
But that is not:
500 people.
If a grant report does not distinguish between these indicators, the scale of activity may appear significantly larger than the actual unique reach.
BIR MUST BE FULLY CROSS-CHECKED AGAINST THE REGISTERS OF ALL GRANT-MAKING AUTHORITIES
Each project must be checked simultaneously against:
IMDi;
the county authority;
municipalities;
Kompetanse Norge;
Bufdir;
Lotteri- og stiftelsestilsynet;
VAT compensation;
and other public funding sources.
The objective of the review should be:
to establish whether the same event was described in several applications;
whether the same employee was financed from several projects;
whether the same rent was included in different budgets;
whether the same printing costs were used more than once;
whether identical expenses were submitted to several grant providers.
It must be emphasized:
this remains an audit hypothesis, not an established finding of double funding.
But where funding comes from multiple channels, such cross-checking is an elementary requirement of serious financial oversight.
THE ULTIMATE RECIPIENT OF EVERY KRONE MUST BE IDENTIFIED
The principal weakness of aggregated accounting is that it reveals the category while concealing the person.
“Consultant” is not a name.
“Project management” is not a name.
“Organization of an event” is not a name.
“Participation compensation” is not a name.
“Partner organizations” is not the name of a recipient.
“Rent” is not the landlord.
A genuine review must convert every such line into:
NAME / legal entity → amount → contract → decision → bank transfer → work performed → relationship to management.
Until this is done, the taxpayer can see categories of expenditure, but not the complete financial chain.
ORGANIZATIONS THAT BOTH RECEIVED MONEY AND VOTED MUST BE EXAMINED SEPARATELY
This is one of the most serious points requiring scrutiny.
If BIR transferred money to a member organization and the representative of that organization subsequently participated in electing BIR’s leadership, that overlap must be documented.
The overlap itself may be lawful.
But it is necessary to examine:
who made the decision on the payment;
whether the recipient participated in making that decision;
whether criteria for distributing the funds existed;
whether organizations personally or politically close to the leadership received money;
whether there were competing applications;
how the amounts were allocated;
how recipients voted at the subsequent annual meeting.
Without such analysis, the genuine independence of corporate governance cannot be established.
A PROSECUTORIAL REVIEW CAN BEGIN ONLY WHERE THE AUDIT IDENTIFIES A SPECIFIC DISCREPANCY
What has not yet been verified cannot be declared a crime in advance.
But the absence of a criminal case cannot be used as an argument against conducting a review.
The correct sequence is:
1. Obtain the primary documents.
2. Compare the information provided to the state with the underlying reality.
3. Identify specific material discrepancies, if any.
4. Establish whether those discrepancies were accidental errors or systematic.
5. Establish whether they affected the receipt of public funds or official status.
6. Establish who prepared, signed, and submitted the relevant information.
7. Where sufficient grounds exist, refer the material to the competent supervisory or law-enforcement authority for legal assessment.
That is what a serious review means.
NOT ONLY BIR, BUT ALSO THOSE WHO ACCEPTED ITS REPORTING FOR DECADES MUST BE EXAMINED
Even if significant deficiencies in information provided by BIR are established in the future, the responsibility of public authorities does not disappear.
On the contrary.
The next question would be:
Why was this not discovered earlier?
Who at IMDi reviewed the medlemsoversikt?
Who at the county authority verified the declared membership base?
Were member organizations contacted on a sample basis?
Were registration data cross-checked?
Were sharp changes in membership examined?
Was duplicate membership checked?
Were grants cross-compared?
Were ultimate recipients verified?
Or did the public system primarily accept documents prepared by the recipient of the funds itself?
If the latter is confirmed, the issue will no longer concern BIR alone.
It will concern a systemic defect in public oversight of integration grants.
A RECIPIENT CANNOT BE CONTROLLED BY MEANS OF ITS OWN STATEMENTS
This is the central conclusion of this supplement.
BIR writes that BIR is an important organization.
BIR writes that BIR integrates effectively.
BIR writes that BIR represents approximately 4,000 people.
BIR writes that its activities are in demand.
BIR writes that the organization has achieved a great deal.
All these statements may legitimately exist as BIR’s own self-assessment.
But the self-assessment of a recipient of public funding is not an independent state verification.
An organization cannot itself:
create an indicator;
itself confirm that indicator;
itself describe the result;
itself assess effectiveness;
and then use its own report as evidence supporting subsequent funding.
Between the recipient of the money and the conclusion that the money was used effectively, there must be independent oversight.
BIJAN GHARAHKHANI’S AUTHORITY MUST NOT BE USED AS A SUBSTITUTE FOR VERIFICATION
The long-standing public profile of a leader does not exempt an organization from scrutiny.
Awards are not an audit.
Political trust is not an audit.
Employment in NAV is not an audit.
Participation in commissions is not an audit.
Newspaper coverage is not an audit.
Twenty years as chair are not proof that twenty years of reporting were accurate.
On the contrary.
The longer one person remains at the center of governmental, civic, and political interaction, the greater the required independence of oversight.
A COMPLETE MAP OF RELATIONSHIPS MUST BE CONSTRUCTED
For every significant participant in BIR, it is necessary to establish:
role within BIR;
role within a member organization;
payments received;
participation in projects;
party position;
municipal functions;
employment in NAV or other public institutions;
participation in consultative bodies;
family and business relationships where their examination is legally permissible and relevant;
participation in allocation of funds;
participation in voting.
The objective is not to “accuse a network.”
The objective is to see what cannot be seen in isolated annual reports:
the intersection of money, positions, votes, and public authority.
WHAT MUST BE OBTAINED FIRST
A full review requires:
all BIR medlemsoversikt;
all membership applications;
board decisions admitting organizations;
all documents concerning exclusion of organizations;
all membership-fee payments;
all annual-meeting minutes;
all registration sheets;
all election results;
all lists of representatives;
all applications for public grants;
all attachments to those applications;
all funding decisions;
all interim and final reports;
all bank statements relating to grant-funded projects;
the general ledger;
primary invoices and supporting documentation;
consultant contracts;
lease agreements;
contractor agreements;
lists of payments to partner organizations;
conflict-of-interest declarations;
recusal decisions;
procurement documents;
correspondence with grant providers;
and original electronic versions of annual reports.
PARTICULAR ATTENTION MUST BE PAID TO THE PRESERVATION OF DOCUMENTS
Because the period under examination exceeds twenty years, some documentation may already be approaching ordinary retention limits or may have been lost.
Accordingly, once an official review begins, the preservation of existing materials must, within the bounds of the law, be secured immediately.
In particular:
accounting archives;
email;
grant attachments;
membership spreadsheets;
old websites;
backup copies;
banking records;
and documents transferred to public archives.
BIR’s annual report for 2022 itself states that the organization has an agreement with Statsarkivet in Kongsberg and transfers its documents there twice a year.
Accordingly, the archival trail is of particular interest.
It is necessary to establish which documents were actually transferred to the archive, for which years, and whether they include original medlemsoversikt, minutes, grant attachments, and financial documentation.
THE ARCHIVE MAY BECOME THE KEY TO THE INVESTIGATION
If BIR genuinely transferred materials systematically to a public archive, this creates a unique opportunity.
A current website can be altered.
A publication can be corrected.
A page can be deleted.
But an archival copy transferred in a timely manner to an independent institution can show what exactly existed on a specific date.
It is therefore necessary to compare:
the archival version;
the version currently available on the website;
the version submitted to IMDi;
the version submitted to the county authority;
and BIR’s internal original.
Any material discrepancies must be explained.
THE MAIN QUESTION IS NO LONGER “DID BIR WORK WELL?”
That question is too vague.
The real questions must be formulated differently.
Did the claimed thousands of members actually exist?
Did the claimed network of organizations of the stated scale actually exist?
How was that membership calculated?
Who verified it?
Was it used to obtain money and administrative influence?
Who were the ultimate recipients of public funds?
Which organizations simultaneously received money and participated in electing the leadership?
Which information did public authorities verify independently, and which did they simply accept from BIR?
Did multiple funding, related-party recipients, or other irregularities exist?
The final questions cannot today be answered affirmatively without documentary evidence.
But that is precisely why the documents must be examined.
IF THE 4,000 ARE CONFIRMED, THAT MUST BE RECORDED. IF THEY ARE NOT, THE QUESTION BECOMES FAR MORE SERIOUS
An independent investigation should not seek an accusatory outcome in advance.
Its task is to establish the truth.
If the primary documents demonstrate:
4,000 real and unique members;
dozens of genuine and active organizations;
accurate lists;
correct information in grant applications;
no double funding;
market-level prices;
independent contractors;
absence of conflicts of interest,
that must be acknowledged.
But if the review shows that the declared indicators materially diverged from the primary documentation, it will then be necessary to establish:
the scale of the discrepancy;
its duration;
who created it;
who repeated it;
who signed the documents;
which government decisions were made on the basis of that information;
what amount of public funding may have depended upon the relevant claims.
At that point, the issue will no longer be a dispute over the effectiveness of integration policy.
It will become a question of the reliability of the information on the basis of which the state made administrative and financial decisions.
FINAL CONCLUSION
For decades, Buskerud Innvandrerråd constructed a public image of a large, stable, and representative regional structure.
Dozens of organizations.
Thousands of members.
Government partners.
NAV.
IMDi.
The county authority.
Municipalities.
Politicians.
Conferences.
Projects.
Grants.
But the scale of names does not substitute for the scale of evidence.
If 4,000 people are claimed — show the methodology by which the 4,000 were counted.
If more than 30 organizations are claimed — show each organization and its real activity.
If twenty years of effective integration work are claimed — show twenty years of measurable results.
If the state provided money — show the ultimate recipients.
If the state conducted verification — show the verification documents.
It should no longer be accepted that an organization simultaneously serves as the source of a claim, the source confirming that claim, and the source assessing its own effectiveness.
Especially where public money is concerned.
Especially where access to socially vulnerable groups is involved.
Especially where the organization’s leadership was simultaneously present within the public integration environment and political life.
And especially after more than two decades of such a model.
What is required here is not another conference about trust.
Not another anniversary speech.
Not another award.
Not another interview with a long-serving chair.
Not another annual report repeating the language of “positive and effective integration.”
What is required is a comprehensive independent audit of the primary documentation.
And if such an audit identifies substantial indications of the submission of inaccurate information, improper use of public funds, conflicts of interest, related-party payments, double funding, or other irregularities, the relevant material must be subjected to a separate legal assessment by the competent supervisory and law-enforcement authorities.
Only then will the state be able to answer the question it should have asked much earlier:
WHAT IN THE HISTORY OF BUSKERUD INNVANDRERRÅD WAS AN INDEPENDENTLY VERIFIED FACT — AND WHAT, FOR DECADES, REMAINED MERELY A CLAIM MADE BY THE RECIPIENT OF PUBLIC FUNDS ITSELF?
NORWAY’S INTEGRATION POLICY: IT IS TIME TO STOP DISCUSSING INTENTIONS AND START EXAMINING RESULTS
A Critical Introduction to the Study of Public Financing, Institutional Oversight, and the Buskerud Integration Model
By Doctor of Philosophy Mayer Meir Kaltenbrunner
For decades, the integration policy of the Kingdom of Norway has been presented to society primarily through the language of good intentions.
Integration.
Participation.
Equal opportunities.
Dialogue.
Diversity.
Social inclusion.
Combating discrimination.
Strengthening trust.
All of these objectives are worthy of support in themselves.
But public policy cannot be evaluated solely according to the nobility of the words by which it describes itself.
If the state spends taxpayers’ money on a particular public programme for decades, there is a considerably simpler and, at the same time, considerably more uncomfortable criterion:
WHAT EXACTLY DID SOCIETY RECEIVE IN RETURN FOR THIS MONEY?
In my view, it is precisely with this question that any serious discussion of Norway’s integration policy must now begin.
Not with another conference.
Not with another slogan.
Not with another celebratory report about “dialogue” and “diversity.”
And not even with another statement about the number of activities that have been conducted.
The discussion must begin with documents.
With budgets.
With the banking and accounting trails of public funds.
With contracts.
With grants.
With criteria for the allocation of financing.
With recipients’ reporting.
With measurable indicators of results.
With independent audit conclusions.
And, finally, with the personal and institutional responsibility of those who made decisions, allocated resources, implemented programmes, supervised them, and reported their results to the state.
THE CENTRAL QUESTION IS NO LONGER: “DOES INTEGRATION WORK?”
The question “Does integration work?” is, in itself, too abstract.
It can be answered indefinitely.
One public authority will present a positive report.
Another organisation will describe the activities it has conducted.
A municipality will present statistics concerning participants.
A grant recipient will list seminars, conferences, and projects.
A politician will cite an individual success story.
And the discussion will once again end exactly where it began.
The question must therefore be formulated differently.
WHERE EXACTLY WERE PUBLIC FUNDS DIRECTED?
WHO EXACTLY MADE THE DECISIONS CONCERNING THEIR USE?
WHO RECEIVED THOSE FUNDS?
WHO EVALUATED THE RESULTS?
WHAT MEASURABLE INDICATORS WERE USED?
WHO INDEPENDENTLY VERIFIED THE ACCURACY OF THE REPORTING?
AND WHAT WERE THE LONG-TERM RESULTS OF THE PROGRAMMES IN COMPARISON WITH THE ACTUAL BUDGETARY EXPENDITURE?
This is where a genuine audit of public policy begins.
This is where political rhetoric ends and verifiable administrative reality begins.
PUBLIC MONEY REQUIRES PUBLIC EVIDENCE
A government grant is not a gift.
It is society’s money.
Every krone directed by the state or a municipality towards integration has an origin.
It comes from the taxes paid by working people.
From public revenues.
From funds administered by the state not on its own behalf, but on behalf of society.
The recipient of public funding must therefore never be regarded as the final point of oversight.
On the contrary.
The receipt of public funds marks the beginning of an obligation to account for them.
But formal accounting alone is not sufficient.
It is entirely possible to document that one million kroner was spent while failing completely to demonstrate that this expenditure produced a social result worth one million kroner.
This is precisely where the fundamental distinction lies between expenditure control and performance control.
The first asks:
“What was the money spent on?”
The second asks a considerably more important question:
“What changed as a result of that expenditure?”
Norway’s integration policy must withstand both tests.
ACTIVITY MUST NOT BE CONFUSED WITH RESULTS
If an organisation received public funding and conducted ten conferences, twenty meetings, and fifty seminars, this does not in itself demonstrate successful integration.
It demonstrates that ten conferences, twenty meetings, and fifty seminars took place.
Nothing more.
The number of participants is not, by itself, a result.
The number of information materials distributed is not a result.
The number of hours of counselling is not a result.
The number of projects created is not a result.
These are indicators of activity.
The state, however, requires indicators of social impact.
Did proficiency in the Norwegian language improve?
Did sustainable employment increase?
Did long-term dependence on social benefits decrease?
Did the participation of women in education and working life increase?
Did the educational outcomes of the next generation improve?
Did social isolation decrease?
Did interaction between immigrant communities and the wider society increase?
And, most importantly:
CAN A CAUSAL CONNECTION BE DEMONSTRATED BETWEEN THE FUNDED PROGRAMME AND THE CLAIMED IMPROVEMENT?
If the state does not measure this, it does not know whether the programme works.
If it does not know whether the programme works, yet continues to finance it year after year, the problem ceases to be exclusively a problem of integration.
It becomes a problem of public administration.
BUSKERUD AS A TEST OF THE NORWEGIAN SYSTEM
This is precisely why Buskerud is of particular interest.
The region should not be treated as an excuse for a personal political campaign, but as a verifiable case study of how the wider system functions.
For many years, municipal authorities, NAV, integration structures, and civil-society organisations have interacted within this region.
It is therefore possible to ask questions here that extend far beyond the fate of any single organisation.
Which organisations received state or municipal financing?
How much did they receive each year?
For which projects?
What indicators were established before the funds were awarded?
What reports were submitted after the funds had been used?
Who examined those reports?
Was the underlying accounting documentation audited?
Were expenditures compared with actual outcomes?
Were possible overlaps examined involving individuals who simultaneously participated in governmental, municipal, political, and civil-society activities?
And was there ever a comprehensive independent audit of this system over an extended period, rather than merely formal examinations of individual annual accounts?
THE PHENOMENON OF BIDJAN GHARAHKHANI MUST BE EXAMINED AS AN INSTITUTIONAL QUESTION
In this context, the activities of Bidjan Gharahkhani are of particular public interest.
The reason for that interest is not his Iranian origin.
It is not his family.
It is not his nationality.
It is not his religion.
Nor is it the origin of his son.
None of these circumstances has, in itself, any legal or analytical relevance to the question of financial oversight.
The reason is considerably simpler.
It lies in the duration and combination of public roles.
Publicly available materials of Buskerud Innvandrerråd indicate that Bidjan Gharahkhani headed that organisation for an extraordinarily long period.
At the same time, his public biography was connected with integration work in Øvre Eiker and with NAV.
In the official composition of an expert group in 2021, he was presented simultaneously as the person responsible for integration in NAV Øvre Eiker and as the head of Buskerud Innvandrerråd.
This is an exceptionally important fact for institutional analysis.
It does not in itself prove corruption, unlawful appropriation of funds, a conflict of interest, or any criminal offence.
Nor should the present study artificially transform it into such proof.
But it does legitimately give rise to another question:
WHAT MECHANISMS OF INDEPENDENT OVERSIGHT EXISTED IN A SITUATION WHERE THE SAME INDIVIDUAL, OVER MANY YEARS, OCCUPIED A SIGNIFICANT POSITION AT THE INTERSECTION OF INTEGRATION WORK, THE PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, A CIVIL-SOCIETY ORGANISATION, AND LOCAL POLITICS?
That is a question to which the state should be capable of providing a documentary answer.
THE PROBLEM IS NOT THAT ONE PERSON SERVED FOR A LONG TIME
Long service is not in itself a violation.
On the contrary, extensive experience may sometimes be an enormous advantage.
The problem arises when the duration of authority is combined with insufficient institutional distance between the participants within a system.
Modern public administration is not based on an assumption that a particular individual is a bad person.
It is based on the opposite principle:
NO INDIVIDUAL SHOULD REQUIRE THE PERSONAL TRUST OF THE STATE, BECAUSE HIS OR HER ACTIVITIES SHOULD BE CAPABLE OF INDEPENDENT VERIFICATION REGARDLESS OF PERSONAL REPUTATION.
That is why auditors exist.
That is why procurement rules exist.
That is why accounting requirements exist.
That is why conflicts of interest are declared.
That is why a public system should distinguish between the person who makes a decision, the person who receives a resource, the person who implements a project, and the person who evaluates the result.
The longer an individual remains inside such a system, the greater the need becomes not for less oversight, but for more independent oversight.
This protects not only the state.
It also protects the individual concerned from unfounded suspicion.
WHERE IS THE AUDIT TRAIL?
One of the central questions of this study is therefore no longer addressed to Bidjan Gharahkhani.
It is addressed to the state.
If everything was conducted properly over many years, show the oversight.
Show the audits.
Show the documents.
Show the criteria.
Show the decisions allocating the funds.
Show the reports.
Show the independent verification of results.
Show who examined potential overlaps of roles.
Show what deficiencies were identified.
Show what funds were recovered where conditions were not fulfilled, if such cases existed.
Show what sanctions were imposed where violations were established, if violations were established.
Or show the documents demonstrating that no violations were found.
This is not a presumption of guilt.
It is the normal presumption of verifiability of public power.
A QUESTION FOR RIKSREVISJONEN
This is precisely why a separate question arises for Riksrevisjonen.
It must be established whether any audit has ever been conducted that examined not merely an isolated accounting transaction or a single grant year, but the long-term model of public financing of integration activities in Buskerud.
If such an audit was conducted, it is necessary to establish:
when;
which organisations it concerned;
what period it covered;
what amounts were examined;
what documentation was reviewed;
whether the audit examined only formal legality of expenditure or also performance and effectiveness;
what conclusions were reached;
what recommendations were made;
and whether those conclusions were published.
If no such comprehensive audit existed, the next question is:
WHY?
Why could a public policy pursued for decades and financed with taxpayers’ money fail to become the subject of systematic independent regional performance scrutiny?
A QUESTION FOR THE TAX AND FINANCIAL AUTHORITIES
Tax and financial oversight serves a different function.
Here, it is necessary to establish whether accounting documentation corresponds to actual financial flows.
The verifiable questions therefore include:
who received the funds;
into which accounts;
what expenditure was declared;
to whom subsequent payments were made;
whether related counterparties existed;
whether salaries, fees, and administrative expenditure complied with grant conditions;
whether all required income and payments were properly recorded;
and whether adequate primary documentation existed for every material transaction.
Here, too, no violation should be presumed in advance.
But the absence of predetermined guilt has never been a reason not to conduct an audit.
Otherwise, financial oversight would lose its purpose entirely.
A QUESTION FOR THE PROSECUTION SERVICE AND LAW-ENFORCEMENT AUTHORITIES
The prosecution service and the police represent the next stage.
And at this stage the presumption of innocence must be observed with particular care.
Not every administrative weakness is a crime.
Not every ineffective programme constitutes corruption.
Not every overlap of roles constitutes a legally defined conflict of interest.
Not every incorrect payment constitutes fraud.
That is precisely why an investigation must proceed from documents to conclusions, rather than from suspicion to a predetermined accusation.
But the reverse principle is equally important:
THE PRESUMPTION OF INNOCENCE IS NOT A PRESUMPTION OF IMMUNITY FROM SCRUTINY.
If a financial audit reveals substantial unexplained discrepancies, the state must determine their nature.
If the violations are administrative, administrative mechanisms should be applied.
If they are financial, financial mechanisms should be applied.
If they are tax-related, tax mechanisms should be applied.
If sufficient grounds emerge for suspecting a criminal offence, the matter then enters the competence of law-enforcement authorities.
But the documents must come first.
THE SYSTEM CANNOT BE ITS OWN SOLE AUDITOR
There is another fundamental problem.
An organisation receives a grant.
It prepares a report.
The authority that provided the grant accepts the report.
The state then declares that the programme has been implemented.
But where is the independent verification of the final result?
The recipient of public funds cannot be the ultimate judge of its own effectiveness.
An authority that has financed a particular model for decades also has an institutional interest in demonstrating that the chosen model was reasonable.
This is precisely why external oversight is necessary.
Not in order to accuse anyone in advance.
But in order to prevent a situation in which a public system spends years confirming its own success through its own reporting mechanisms.
OF PARTICULAR IMPORTANCE: EVIDENCE THAT DOES NOT SUPPORT THE CRITICAL HYPOTHESIS MUST ALSO BE CONSIDERED
A critical study will be persuasive only if it does not conceal evidence that is inconvenient to its own hypothesis.
There are evaluations of integration grants that contain positive conclusions.
At the request of IMDi, the independent research organisations Ideas2evidence and Proba samfunnsanalyse evaluated two grant schemes. Their published findings state that the relevant programmes largely achieved their stated objectives and created activities and meeting places that reached the intended target groups.
This conclusion cannot simply be dismissed because it conflicts with a critical position.
It must instead be examined at another level.
What indicators were actually used?
Were activities measured, or were long-term social outcomes measured?
How was the sample selected?
How was a causal relationship between funding and outcome established?
Which organisations were examined?
Did the evaluation cover the specific long-term Buskerud model?
And can that evaluation legitimately support conclusions concerning the effectiveness of an entire regional system over two decades?
This is how serious criticism operates.
It does not destroy evidence from the other side.
It tests that evidence.
THIS IS NOT ABOUT BIDJAN GHARAHKHANI AS AN INDIVIDUAL
This must be stated with absolute clarity.
The present study must not become a trial of one person.
If future documentation demonstrates that every public krone was used properly, that no conflicts of interest existed, that oversight was independent, and that the results corresponded to the expenditure, those conclusions should be published with the same readiness with which critical questions are being raised today.
But if the documents demonstrate otherwise, political status, public reputation, party affiliation, length of service, or family connections must not obstruct the conclusions of public authorities.
In a state governed by the rule of law, there is only one acceptable standard:
DOCUMENTS MUST DETERMINE THE ISSUE, NOT A PERSON’S REPUTATION.
THE PRIMARY OBJECT OF CRITICISM IS THE NORWEGIAN STATE
And here we arrive at the most uncomfortable conclusion.
Even if a future audit identifies no criminal wrongdoing by any particular individual, that would not necessarily mean that the public system functioned well.
Because the principal subject of this study is not a criminal case.
It is the quality of public administration.
If the state finances programmes for decades but cannot demonstrate their long-term effectiveness, that is a problem.
If the state accepts reporting but does not compare it with objective social outcomes, that is a problem.
If the same individuals remain for decades at the intersection of several institutional roles without sufficiently transparent external oversight, that is a problem.
If auditing takes place primarily inside the same administrative system, that is a problem.
If it is impossible to determine quickly the full amount of public financing received by a particular organisation over twenty years, that is a transparency problem.
If society cannot obtain a simple answer to the question, “How much was spent and what exactly was achieved?” that inability is itself a result worthy of an auditor’s attention.
THIS STUDY THEREFORE REQUIRES AN AUDIT RESPONSE, NOT A POLITICAL ONE
I do not need another answer explaining that integration is a complex process.
That is obvious.
I do not need another list of good initiatives.
I do not need photographs of conferences.
I do not need accounts of how many meetings took place.
I do not need political declarations about diversity.
I need a verifiable chain:
BUDGET → RECIPIENT → PROJECT → EXPENDITURE → CONCRETE RESULT → INDEPENDENT VERIFICATION.
For every material public grant.
For every year.
For every organisation falling within the scope of scrutiny.
And for every public official or civil-society figure whose overlapping roles may objectively have required additional oversight.
Only then will the state be able to tell society convincingly that taxpayers’ money was indeed used effectively.
TWENTY-FIVE YEARS IS NOT AN ARGUMENT FOR FORGETTING. IT IS A REASON FOR AUDIT
The longer a system has existed, the stronger the case for retrospective examination becomes.
Twenty or twenty-five years is long enough to stop evaluating integration policy according to intentions.
Over such a period it is already possible to examine generations.
Employment.
Education.
Language integration.
Economic independence.
Social mobility.
Dependence on public benefits.
Participation in civic life.
And the cost of the results achieved.
Time therefore does not work against an audit today.
It makes an audit even more necessary.
FIVE QUESTIONS TO WHICH THE NORWEGIAN STATE SHOULD PROVIDE DOCUMENTARY ANSWERS
Ultimately, hundreds of pages of research can be reduced to five questions.
FIRST.
How much state and municipal funding, in total, was directed towards the relevant integration programmes and organisations in Buskerud over the entire period under examination?
SECOND.
Who made the decisions, who implemented the programmes, and who exercised oversight?
THIRD.
What concrete, predetermined, and measurable indicators were used by the state to establish the effectiveness of expenditure?
FOURTH.
What genuinely independent financial audits, performance audits, and examinations of possible conflicts of interest were conducted — and where are their results?
FIFTH.
If comprehensive independent oversight did not exist, who within the system of public administration bears responsibility for the failure to ensure it?
This is the level to which the discussion must now move.
Not:
“DO YOU BELIEVE IN INTEGRATION?”
But:
“SHOW THE RESULTS AND SHOW THE AUDIT.”
Not:
“IS A PARTICULAR PERSON GOOD OR BAD?”
But:
“WHAT POWERS DID THAT PERSON EXERCISE, WHAT PUBLIC RESOURCES PASSED THROUGH THE SYSTEM IN WHICH HE OPERATED, AND WHO INDEPENDENTLY OVERSAW THAT SYSTEM?”
Not:
“WERE THE INTENTIONS NOBLE?”
But:
“WHAT WAS THE MEASURABLE RESULT?”
These are the questions that documents must now answer.
Because after decades of Norwegian public integration policy, society has the right to demand considerably more than good intentions.
It has the right to demand evidence.
TAXPAYERS’ MONEY REQUIRES NOT TRUST.
IT REQUIRES ACCOUNTABILITY.
PUBLIC POLICY REQUIRES NOT SELF-EVALUATION.
IT REQUIRES INDEPENDENT SCRUTINY.
AND TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF INTEGRATION POLICY IS ALREADY LONG ENOUGH TO STOP ASKING ABOUT INTENTIONS AND START DEMANDING EVIDENCE OF RESULTS.
THE OCTOPUS OF THE SYSTEM: WHEN INTEGRATION POLICY BECOMES A NETWORK OF OVERLAPPING INTERESTS
The State Must Establish Whether a System Existed in Buskerud in Which Civil-Society Organisations, Public Institutions, Local Politics, and Public Financing Became Too Closely Intertwined
There comes a point at which it is no longer sufficient to examine an individual grant.
It is no longer sufficient to investigate an individual organisation.
It is no longer sufficient to open the accounts for a single year.
It is no longer sufficient to ask whether a particular payment was properly documented.
If the same individuals, organisations, and public institutions interact with one another over decades, it becomes necessary to examine not merely the individual components.
It becomes necessary to examine the network.
It is precisely here that I use the metaphor of the octopus.
Not as an assertion that a criminal organisation existed.
Not as an accusation that Bidjan Gharahkhani or any other individual engaged in corruption.
And not as a criminal verdict delivered in advance.
I use this metaphor to describe a very different risk:
AN INSTITUTIONAL SYSTEM WHOSE TENTACLES MAY SIMULTANEOUSLY EXTEND INTO PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, NAV, MUNICIPAL POLITICS, CIVIL-SOCIETY ORGANISATIONS, GRANT FINANCING, AND THE SYSTEM USED TO EVALUATE ITS OWN RESULTS.
Did such an “octopus” in fact exist?
That question should not be decided by an author’s metaphor.
It must be determined by documents.
But the state has an obligation to examine whether such a structure could have existed.
ONE PERSON IS NOT AN OCTOPUS. A SYSTEM OF OVERLAPPING ROLES CAN BECOME ONE
It would therefore be a mistake to reduce the present study exclusively to the personality of Bidjan Gharahkhani.
The issue is considerably more serious.
Publicly available sources document the unusually prolonged presence of one individual in several socially significant spheres simultaneously.
For many years, Bidjan Gharahkhani was connected with integration work in NAV Øvre Eiker.
At the same time, he headed Buskerud Innvandrerråd for decades.
At the same time, he participated in local politics.
At the same time, BIR interacted with municipal and state institutions.
At the same time, the integration model developed in Øvre Eiker was publicly presented as a positive example.
Each of these roles, considered individually, is entirely lawful.
Even the combination of several roles does not in itself prove any violation.
But public oversight exists precisely because relationships that are lawful individually may, when combined, create an institutional concentration of influence requiring heightened transparency.
The proper question is therefore not:
“IS BIDJAN GHARAHKHANI GUILTY?”
The proper question is:
“WHY DID THE NORWEGIAN STATE PERMIT SUCH A PROLONGED CONCENTRATION OF OVERLAPPING ROLES WITHOUT A PUBLICLY ACCESSIBLE COMPREHENSIVE AUDIT TRAIL, IF NO SUCH AUDIT WAS IN FACT CONDUCTED?”
THE MAP OF THE TENTACLES MUST BE CONSTRUCTED DOCUMENTARILY
If the state genuinely intends to understand this system, it is not sufficient to inspect the accounts of a single organisation.
A map of relationships must be constructed.
The first tentacle is state financing.
What public funds were directed towards organisations operating in the integration sphere in Buskerud?
The second is municipal financing.
What funds were provided by municipalities?
The third is NAV and public integration work.
Which officials participated in integration programmes while simultaneously interacting with civil-society organisations?
The fourth is civil-society organisations.
Who served in their leadership?
For how long?
Which organisations belonged to umbrella structures?
Who represented their interests before public authorities?
The fifth is politics.
Which leaders of civil-society integration structures simultaneously held party-political or municipal political positions?
The sixth is consultative influence.
Who was invited by the state to participate in expert groups, commissions, councils, and advisory bodies?
The seventh is oversight.
Who examined all of the participants listed above?
The final tentacle is the most important.
Because if the oversight itself existed within the same closely interconnected environment, the state must answer a fundamental question:
WHO OVERSAW THE OVERSEERS?
THE MONEY MUST BE TRACED FROM THE FIRST KRONE TO THE LAST
It is not sufficient to rely on an aggregate figure for integration spending.
A clear principle is required:
FOLLOW THE MONEY.
For every state or municipal grant under examination, it is necessary to establish:
the source of the funds;
the decision allocating them;
the recipient;
the recipient’s bank account;
the designated purpose of the funds;
the conditions governing the grant;
the actual expenditure;
subcontractors;
fees;
salaries;
administrative expenses;
rent;
events;
transfers to other organisations;
remaining balances;
funds returned;
reporting;
the audit conclusion;
and the final measurable result.
Only after reconstructing this chain can one determine whether effective public oversight existed.
EXAMINE NOT ONLY THOSE WHO RECEIVED THE MONEY, BUT ALSO THOSE WHO PROVIDED IT
This is especially important.
A public audit must not proceed on the assumption that the problem lies exclusively with the recipient of a grant.
If money was spent ineffectively over many years, one must also ask:
who continued to provide it?
Who signed the decisions?
Who accepted the reports?
Who certified that the conditions had been fulfilled?
Who recommended continued financing?
Who evaluated effectiveness?
Who identified weaknesses?
Who had a duty to react?
Who failed to react?
And why?
At this point, the investigation ceases to be merely an examination of BIR.
It becomes an examination of the Norwegian state itself.
TWENTY-FOUR YEARS OF LEADERSHIP CONSTITUTES AN INSTITUTIONAL ERA
According to Buskerud Innvandrerråd’s own public materials, Bidjan Gharahkhani concluded his leadership of the organisation after twenty-four years.
Twenty-four years is not merely a lengthy period of service.
For the purposes of public audit, it constitutes an entire institutional era.
During that period, governments changed.
Ministers changed.
Municipal leadership changed.
Budgets changed.
Integration programmes changed.
Administrative structures changed.
Generations of immigrants changed.
But if key elements of the regional integration infrastructure retained a high degree of personal and organisational continuity, that fact itself warrants retrospective examination.
Not because longevity proves wrongdoing.
But because duration increases the consequences of any systemic weakness in oversight.
An error that exists for one year is an error.
An error reproduced for twenty years becomes a system.
THE MOST DANGEROUS FORM OF AN INSTITUTIONAL OCTOPUS NEED NOT BE SECRET
It may be entirely public.
Everyone may know one another.
Everyone may meet at conferences.
Everyone may participate in advisory councils.
Everyone may cooperate with municipalities.
Everyone may receive public recognition.
All the documentation may formally exist.
And for precisely that reason, no one may ask the central question for years:
HAS THE SYSTEM BECOME TOO CLOSE TO ITSELF?
This may represent a considerably more serious danger than a primitive corruption scheme.
An institutional system may gradually begin to treat its own long-standing partners as the natural representatives of an entire social group.
The same organisations gain access to the state.
The same representatives participate in dialogue.
The same structures advise public authorities.
The same structures implement projects.
The results of that cooperation are then used to confirm the correctness of the model itself.
A closed circle emerges.
THE STATE FINANCES THE SYSTEM.
THE SYSTEM REPORTS TO THE STATE.
THE STATE ACCEPTS THE REPORT.
THE SYSTEM RECEIVES FURTHER FINANCING.
If no genuinely independent examination of results exists between these four stages, public administration begins to oversee itself.
WHERE WERE THE SAFEGUARDS?
This is why I address what I regard as the central question to the state:
WHERE WERE THE INSTITUTIONAL SAFEGUARDS?
Where was Riksrevisjonen?
What oversight was exercised by the relevant public authorities?
What financial oversight was exercised by the municipalities?
What examinations were conducted by the tax authorities within their competence?
What mechanisms existed to prevent conflicts of interest?
What independent evaluations of effectiveness were conducted?
What risk signals were identified?
What examinations followed those signals?
If answers exist, they should be presented documentarily.
If they do not exist, the absence of an answer becomes in itself a subject of institutional examination.
WHAT IS NEEDED IS NOT A SEARCH FOR A CULPRIT, BUT AN INSTITUTIONAL AUTOPSY
Norway does not today need a political hunt for a particular individual.
What is required is an institutional autopsy of the system.
It must be opened layer by layer.
Financing.
Authority.
Organisations.
Positions.
Political roles.
Expert roles.
Grants.
Reports.
Oversight.
Results.
Only then will it become possible to determine whether the system functioned normally, whether there were isolated administrative weaknesses, or whether a considerably more serious structural problem existed.
IF AN ABSCESS EXISTS, IT CAN NO LONGER BE COVERED WITH A BANDAGE MADE OF ATTRACTIVE WORDS
For decades, integration policy has been accompanied by the correct vocabulary.
Dialogue.
Tolerance.
Diversity.
Inclusion.
Participation.
But attractive words do not constitute a system of internal control.
Tolerance is not a substitute for audit.
Diversity is not a substitute for accounting.
Inclusiveness does not remove the obligation to demonstrate results.
Anti-discrimination policy does not provide immunity from financial scrutiny.
And a person’s origin should be neither a reason for suspicion nor a shield against lawful examination of his or her public activities.
THE SAME STANDARD FOR EVERYONE.
IF EVERYTHING WAS PROPER, AN AUDIT WILL DEMONSTRATE IT
This is perhaps the most important proposition in this chapter.
A person whose activities were lawful and transparent should not fear an audit.
An audit can remove suspicion.
If twenty-four years of BIR’s activities withstand independent financial and administrative examination, that should be stated publicly.
If Bidjan Gharahkhani’s activities withstand scrutiny concerning the overlap of his various roles, that should likewise be acknowledged publicly.
If public authorities exercised adequate oversight, let them present the documents.
If public funds produced demonstrable social results, let them present the indicators.
But if the documentation reveals systemic deficiencies, the state will no longer be able to shield itself behind the good intentions of integration policy.
THIS IS WHY THE “OCTOPUS” METAPHOR MUST BE TESTED AGAINST A DOCUMENTARY MAP
I am not asking the state to believe the author of this study.
I am asking the state to examine his questions.
Construct the map.
Place upon it every public donor.
Every organisation.
Every recipient.
Every leader.
Every public position.
Every political position.
Every grant.
Every contract.
Every material payment.
Every audit report.
Every decision to continue financing.
Then connect the lines.
Only then will it become visible whether the “octopus” existed merely as an author’s journalistic metaphor — or whether public auditors will in fact encounter a network of institutional relationships so closely intertwined that it requires substantially deeper investigation.
DO NOT BELIEVE THE METAPHOR.
EXAMINE THE NETWORK.
AND IF SUCH A NETWORK EXISTED, THE CENTRAL QUESTION WILL NO LONGER BE DIRECTED AT BIDJAN GHARAHKHANI
It will be directed at the state:
HOW COULD SUCH A SYSTEM HAVE EXISTED FOR SO LONG WITHOUT SUFFICIENT INDEPENDENT OVERSIGHT?
Who was responsible for overseeing it?
Who actually oversaw it?
What was examined?
What remained unexamined?
Why?
And who bears administrative and political responsibility for the absence of oversight, if such an absence is established?
This is where the story of one individual ends.
And where the story of state responsibility begins.
BECAUSE AN OCTOPUS, IF IT EXISTS, IS NEVER MERELY A PROBLEM OF ONE TENTACLE.
IT IS A PROBLEM OF THE SYSTEM THAT ALLOWED ALL OF THE TENTACLES TO BECOME CONNECTED.
That is why what is required today is not another declaration about the successes of integration.
What is required is a full independent audit.
FOLLOW THE MONEY.
MAP THE NETWORK.
VERIFY THE RESULTS.
IDENTIFY THE RESPONSIBILITY.
And only the documents should determine the final conclusion.
