Nils Petter Labba, reindeer herder in the Saarivuoma Sami village, believes that the Sami Parliament's Reindeer Nutrition Committee prioritized wrongly when distributing the extra ten million that the state gave due to the grazing crisis in the winter of 2021-2022.

He has now lost confidence in Sametinegt.

- It's wrong, the way they chose to do it.

How they distributed and that they chose to calculate how much was slaughtered.

How would you like to be prioritized then?

- They applied for this extra money because of 28 Sami villages' application for support.

If it turned out that everyone had a grazing crisis and they want to pay out to all 51 Sami villages, they would have applied for all 51 Sami villages, and then applied and received more money, says Nils Petter Labba.

"We were caught in bed"

The ten million was announced in the government's spring amendment budget and arrived this spring.

They would be of financial support to reindeer owners and Sami villages due to high feed costs and other overheads associated with difficult grazing conditions.

A total of SEK 190,257 was paid out of the ten million to the Saarivuoma Sami village.

The chairman of the Sámi Parliament's reindeer husbandry committee says they tried to avoid breaking regulations when distributing the money.

- We were taken to bed.

We went through how we could distribute this extra money as fairly as possible, says Jan Rannerud (Vuovdega), who believes that they will distribute differently if they come to the same situation again.

I understand the criticism but want to look ahead

Matti Blind Berg, chairman of the National Confederation of Swedish Sami, understands the villages' criticism, but focuses on working forward.

- It is unfortunate that you calculate in the way you did.

It goes without saying that fewer animals are slaughtered when there is a crisis due to poor grazing.

This was extra money, can you understand that they chose to share it with all Sami villages?

- It's a good idea and there would have been reactions no matter how you chose to do it.

And 10 million in all its glory, but it's a pittance when you look at the measures that had to be taken by the government, says Matti Blind Berg.