In July 2022, it started to blow around the housing company Bengtsforshus. An external investigator was brought in to investigate a suspected violation case.
What the municipality did not find out when the consultant was hired was that his company was deregistered in January 2022. He was also not registered for VAT or f-tax. The debts of the Crown Office amounted to over four million kroner.
The municipality had discovered this if it had followed its own guidelines for control in direct procurement.
Sentenced to prison
In February 2023, the consultant was sentenced to 1 year and 4 months in prison for gross accounting crime and gross tax crime by the Stockholm District Court. During four years, 2016-2019, he had run a business without reporting it. In total, it was about income of just over five million that was not taxed. He has also been banned from eating.
Missing documentation
There is currently no documentation on how the agreement with the consultant came about, something that must exist for all direct procurement over SEK 100,000, according to the Public Procurement Act.
Bengtsforshu’s board chairman Ulf Nelson (M) does not want to leave any comment to SVT Nyheter Väst, but to the newspaper Dalslänningen, which was the first with the information, he says:
– No, there was no procurement. This was initially a personnel matter that was to be investigated under confidentiality. Neither I nor anyone else had any idea how big this would become.
Municipal director: Not hired today
It was the municipal director Göran Eriksson who recommended the consultant to Ulf Nelson. He states that the consultant’s work was perceived as professional – but regrets it today:
“We would not have hired the consultant based on the knowledge we have of the conditions surrounding accounting and tax crimes today. On the other hand, in the matter of the consultant’s competence regarding infringement investigations, I see no question marks. ”, he writes in a statement.
Nor does Göran Eriksson want to appear for an interview.
