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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.
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.
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