Criticism of the government's handling of the tsunami disaster flared up as politicians blasted total inaction after a parliamentary decision to establish a crisis group over two years ago, reports reaching in Stockholm said on Thursday.
The Labor, Socialist Left, Center and Progress parties all criticized the Bondevik coalition government for failing to follow up on a two-year old resolution to establish a crisis group to respond to catastrophes, newspaper Dagsavisen reported.
"We could not foresee such a huge catastrophe. But we could have handled it in a completely different way if we had had a central crisis response unit. This is a contributing factor to the government's handling of the crisis going so very wrong," said Progress Party defense policy spokesman Per Ove Width to Dagsavisen.
Stortinget, Norway's parliament, resolved in October 2002 that the government establish such a central authority with the responsibility for coordinating various departments and services in a crisis after a report on national security.
Two years later, on November 30, 2004, parliament urged action again after finding that nothing had been done.
Reports and exercises indicated that various state departments differed in their opinion of which operations should be led by whom,a state of conflict reflected in the current finger-pointing in response to criticism.
The government maintained that existing arrangements were sufficient, but now admit that a meeting of central ministries and a responsible ministry being appointed to handle the crisis is not an ideal solution.
"With the benefit of hindsight we see that existing crisis readiness is not good enough. Therefore the government will also have a review of all of its routines," said Conservative Party defense policy spokesman Bjorn Hernes.
The Conservatives are the largest party in the governing center- right coalition, with the Christian Democrats and Liberals completing the government bloc.
The official total for Norwegians missing due to the tsunami catastrophe in Southeast Asia is now 81 according to the latest figures from the National Criminal Investigation Service (NCIS). The official death toll remained at 16.