Invited the friend over for lunch - let the taxpayers stand for the bill

When Karlstad Municipality sold its old town hall to a newly started IT company that would become "new Facebook", Business Värmland and project manager Göran Österman played an important role. But as Mission Review has been able to reveal, a longstanding friendship is behind the deal.

Documents filed with the Swedish Agency for Growth also show how Göran Österman invites his friend Mikael Solberg to lunch on several occasions.

The lunches are financed by tax funds, as Business Värmland is financed by Region Värmland and the EU.

Assignment review shows that Österman sent receipts at eleven lunches where Solberg participates. Four of these apply to lunches at one's hand where only Göran Österman's and Mikael Solberg's names are listed on the reported documents.

- An important aspect is always the trust aspect, how things are perceived, and that no suspicion that friendship or innocence will be affected, says Natali Engstam Phalén, secretary general of the Institute against Bribery.

At one of the lunches, as Assignment Review previously told, two of Karlstad's top politicians: Peter Kullgren (KD) and Per-Samuel Nisser (M) also participate. From the meeting on October 21, 2015, before the sale of the town hall to Mikael Solberg's company was decided, there are no notes on what was said.

The municipality's chairman Per-Samuel Nisser (M), explains it all with an informal meeting:

- I have informal meetings all the time, says Per-Samuel Nisser.

In an email to Göran Österman, Göran Österman writes that lunches with Mikael Solberg have been work-related and followed the regulations. That Solberg and he are good friends is completely irrelevant in this context, he writes.