Mounting challenges to private ownership and management as Swedish politicians start reversing private operations in the welfare services.

Friday, 05 July 2013
If the current Swedish Red-Green opposition parties come to power after the 2014 elections, there are greater chances that private companies allowed today to operate and provide welfare services with profit motive as their "modi operandi" could be quarantined.

This is the theme song sang by Jonas Sjöstedt, leader of the Left party as he spoke while presenting his party's strategy for welfare management in at Almedalen. The left party is part of the Left- Green opposition coalition vying for power after the 2014 elections. This would mean that if they succeed to get to office, they would snap the cord linking welfare provision and the ability to make profit from tax payers.

Leader of the swedish Left party, Jonas Sjöstedtl

Leader of Swedish Left Party, Jonas Sjöstedt

This is the second consecutive year that the party leader of the left side of the Swedish political spectrum has taken this issue very seriously and has become more vocal about it. The Left party wants to see an end to the sell-offs of organisations that provide social services such as care homes and hospitals. Sjöstedt criticized not only the government for "taking care more of their business friends than the people" but also went after his opposition colleagues of the Social Democrat party and the Green Party who have not exhibited a stance on the issue:

"There are many who do not want to talk about the privatisation and profiteering in the welfare provision. The government and the Sweden Democrats (Far right party) are on the side of the big businesses profiting from the sector and want to avoid this debate. Neither the Social Democrats nor the Green Party dare take the issue seriously. But this is a serious issue which we in the Left Party want to speak out."

This comes after there has been intense debate in Sweden about the roles of private companies and for profit organisations that earn money from the government to provide various forms of welfare services. The government had aimed that exposing the sector to competition would drive down cost and improve quality since it is generally said that private companied provide more quality and efficiencies that the government run bureaucracies.

But these companies, usually are very large ones which means they'll out run smaller players thus ending up not building the competition that was intended and which results in not providing the quality expected and the reasonable cost they advertise. Companies here grow big by buying smaller competitors in the sector or merging to form super monopolies.
By economising on quality, they make huge profits that are ferried abroad to tax havens after using various tax management techniques to post losses instead of profits.
Leader of teh Left Party of Sweden, Jonas Sjöstedt This has caused consternation in Sweden in the past two years but the big political parties that are controlled by these big companies lack the stones to stand out for the public and the voters.
According to the left party leader, an overwhelming majority of the Swedish population are opposed to the acts of these companies described as using the welfare system to make money for their own good. Sjöstedt, earlier in the day, yesterday unveiled a proposal to amend the Constitution in order to prevent the sale of common property.
"We are not born with a price tags on our backs. Not you, not me. Human relationships are not business transactions," he said putting some human touch into politics.
by Scancomark.com Team

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