By a commentator for Tjen Folket Media.
NRK has written that the toll manager in Bergen is also involved in tax collections in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In other words, he is operating a parasitic enterprise against both the masses in Norway and the DRC. He has become incredibly rich off of toll fees and his gains further finance imperialism.
Trond Juvik, toll manager.
Bomsjefen i bergen styrte skattesystem i Kongo
Bompengetopp tjente 44 millioner kroner i fjor
In NRK’s article, it is revealed that Trond Juvik, manager for the toll collection company Ferde, which collects tolls in Agder, Rogaland, Hordaland, and Sogn og Fjordane, also operates another company, BT Signaal. It was not until this company was bought out by several municipal counties and became Ferde that the enterprise in the DRC was revealed.
One of the world’s largest and most resource-rich countries in the world, in the middle of the southern half of Africa.
Norwegian Tolls Finance Robbery in the DRC
But NRK has revealed that employees at Ferde and the former toll company Skyttel have done a lot of work on behalf of BTS’ tax collections in their working hours.
The contract for tax collection was incredibly parasitic and stipulated that 5% of collections over a given sum were to go directly to the company. Trond Juvik has, in other words, both in Norway and the DRC, made a career out of collecting fees from the masses, and typically those among the poorest, and has made himself rich in the process. In the enormous and incredibly poverty-stricken DRC, he has also involved himself in the finance of the comprador state that serves people just like him through his tax collection business. He greases the wheels for the state apparatus that is dependent on capital from imperialists like himself, in order to prime the DRC for the pillage of its resources. And the old state of the country carries out fascist oppression of the population and all threats against imperialism.
Q&A: DR Congo conflict (BBC)
Africa’s great war (Economist)
The country has also been war-torn for several decades. Africa’s largest war was waged, and continues to be waged, in the DRC. Over the course of its most intense decade, an estimated 3 million people have been killed. Almost all neighboring countries have been involved, and behind them stand states and companies from the US, the UK, China, France, Belgium, and so on. The enormous country has a wealth of mineral resource deposits.
Congolese soldiers crack down on protests against the government
The corruption and rottenness in the DRC is widely known, and a Norwegian-Congolese politician says that the toll manager’s partner is a fully corrupt torturer and murderer:
SV-er hevder bomsjefens Kongo-samarbeidspartner er korrupt
“He arrested youth activists, he tortures them. Many have lost their lives in jail,” says the county representative for SV (Socialist Left Party) in Hordaland, Symphorien Pombe.
Millions of people suffer for slave wages in Congo’s mining industry. An industry where both goods and profits end up in the imperialist countries.
“The Only Alternative Now is to Move to Rwanda”
NRK also writes:
In January and February 2018, the tax project in the DRC was in serious trouble. It led to several crisis meetings in Norway.
The tax project did not return as much income as planned. There was not enough to cover wages and rent for the local employees.
And:
“The only alternative now is to move to Rwanda next week, if we are not able to deliver the solutions as promised.”
The enormous sums that are earned on the labor of others are, as a rule, legitimized by the capitalists with the claim that they are taking enormous economic risks. This case clearly shows that it is not the wealthiest who take the biggest risks, and that employees of the company in the DRC have risked far more. They have, despite Juvik’s seven-figure income, risked not receiving wages and rent money. They have been exposed to such great risks that they must consider leaving the country.
The toll manager’s partner in the DRC, provincial governor Julian Paluku Kahongya.
Toll Money has Covered Juvik’s DRC losses
NRK further writes about the sale of licenses for software from BTS to Ferde:
The termination of the contract made it so that the private company BTS Norway no longer had any use for expensive computer licenses that the company had purchased. As NRK has earlier reported on, Ferde bought these licenses.
“The background for the offer to purchase licenses was that BTS Norway had bought 20 ordinary licenses and 200 special licenses for the project in the DRC that they were not able to use in the project,” Marit Husa earlier revealed in an email to NRK.
In other words, Ferde, with money gained from tolls in Norway, financed Juvik’s losses in the DRC. Where is the so-called risk that the capitalists take? Juvik clearly does not take any great risks when the masses can be made to pay for his losses.
Juvik has an income of 1.6 million [roughly 175,000 USD] from Ferde, and last year earned a total of 4.4 million kroner [482,000 USD] and had a net worth of 7 million kroner [767,000 USD]. We have reported on the toll capitalists, their luxury lifestyles, and the revolt against tolls earlier. With their rotten capitalistic dealings, the toll capitalists like Juvik only stoke the flames, making the masses’ hatred for them grow!
NRK has followed up on the issue as follows:
Rapport etter NRK-avsløringer konkluderer: Flere regelbrudd i bomselskapet Ferde
The law firm Kluge claims that Juvik has not broken any laws:
Kluge has not found anything in connection with the DRC project that indicates that employees or officers in Ferde have violated the law.
Norwegian motorists and parents of young children can, in other words, continue to drive through tolls and be sure that every time they do, they contribute not only to the toll managers’ luxury lifestyles, but also finance the capitalist expedition in Africa that only corrupt compradors and Norwegian toll managers have any interest in.
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