Sure is. And looks like the move may backfire!
Conflict of interest concerns surround leading politician
MP takes on another role as board chairman for an Australian company hoping to extract uranium in Greenland
By Kurt Kristensen
Lars-Emil Johansen has accepted a position as chairman of Greenland Minerals and Energy, despite still being one of Greenland’s two representatives in the Danish parliament.
The move is a controversial one given Premier Kuupik Kleist’s recent statement that his new IA-led coalition government will maintain the country’s 30-year-old zero-tolerance towards uranium mining.
‘I shall of course be attentive to the company’s interests, but I am also a Greenlander, as is the company’s director,’ said Johansen. ‘So another essential task is to ensure that any eventual extraction of rare earth oxides is carried out in both an environmentally and health and safety conscious manner.’
Australian-owned Greenland Minerals and Energy, which has been in the headlines recently due to reported investment losses of up to 100 million kroner, had initially pinned its hopes on a change of Greenland’s uranium mining policy.
However, any certainty that both parliament and government would give the green light to extracting uranium as a by-product was swept away together with former government party Siumut after the 2 June national elections, meaning that the understanding between the mineral company and the Siumut/Atassut government no longer stands.
A parliamentary majority, consisting of then-government coalition partners Siumut and Atassut together with Demokraatit, had came out in support of the company’s proposed mining project on Kvane Mountain, near the town of Narsaq in eastern Greenland, during parliament’s 2008 autumn session.
Johansen denied having broken any rules when asked by Danish newspaper ‘Information’ if he was guilty of mixing politics and personal economic interests.
‘I am simply using my free time to occupy myself with what I want to, and no, I do not think it constitutes a conflict of interests,’ said Johansen. ‘I am just trying to give the new Self-Rule Greenland a reliable income.’
Criticism of Johansen’s acceptance of the position has already been voiced by political commentators, among them Lars Hovbaake Sørsensen, an expert in Greenlandic politics at Denmark’s Aarhus University.
Sørensen pointed out that the appointment represented the very sort of political action that lost Siumut June’s general election. That election saw IA, Demokraatit and KP parties surge to power on the back of an anti-corruption campaign.
One of the three founding fathers of Siumut, the political party that ruled Greenland from Home Rule’s inception in 1979 until last month’s devastating election, Johansen is one of Greenland’s most experienced political figures.
During a political career that has spanned over three decades, Johansen served as premier from 1991-1997, and has represented Greenland in the Danish parliament from 1973-1979 and again since 2001.