JHL (27.10.2014 - Heikki Jokinen) JHL Chief Executive Officer Päivi Niemi-Laine welcomes the plans of the Swedish government to restrict private profit-seeking and tax avoidance in welfare providence.
Such policy would be very welcome in Finland, too, for the private companies working in welfare services who gain from public funding and work as partners with municipalities.
The new Swedish minority government of Social Democrats and Greens has come to an accord with the opposition Left Party to limit the profits of private companies providing social services.
”The next government of Finland needs to adopt a similar model, too. It is beyond the pale to allow private companies to produce public services so that public tax money enables these companies to increase profits,” she says.
"In the other Nordic countries, this kind of restriction already exists in practice," Niemi-Laine says. As a welfare state Finland should follow this model. In other instances, capital investment companies are cashing in on Finland without any rules.
”During the next government term it is also important to loosen the Finnish Companies Act so that municipalities have a right to see - without the possibility to appeal to trade secrets - how companies are using money to produce public services.
It is also important that in the new Public Procurement Act municipalities will get the right to close down such service providers who do not pay taxes to Finland or do not follow Finnish terms of employment”, Niemi-Laine says.
The next Parliament elections in Finland will be on April 2015. The new government will be formed soon after that.