Updated 22:25 | Published 22:05
The municipal board in Emmaboda has renovated its conference room.
Now a table the board bought for 760,000 kroner has aroused upset feelings.
– I can also think it’s a bit expensive, says Emma Åhlander Hansson (M), vice chairman of Emmaboda’s municipal board.
Before war and high inflation, Emmaboda municipality’s technology and recreation board decided at the end of 2020 to ask for just over SEK 1.4 million for a new conference room, according to SVT Småland.
A quarter of a million would then go to furniture and the reconstruction would cost 700,000. How the money would be used was up to the officials.
Table for over SEK 760,000
When the premises are almost finished three years later, the cost of furnishing the conference room has risen. A private person is said to have published the invoices on Facebook showing the details of the costs.
Above all, a specially designed art table has attracted criticism, which is said to have cost over SEK 760,000, according to P4 Kalmar.
Several Emmaboda residents have reacted to the cost.
– We who are ordinary people think it’s too damned, says a woman to P4 Kalmar.
The table is shaped like a boat and filled with glass art from two local glass artists.
Aftonbladet has applied for the chairman of the municipal board, Johan Jonsson (C), who writes in an email:
“Firstly, it is a work of art (purchased as such) that is also to be used as a conference table. I will return next week with answers to your questions.”
“Would have done differently today”
Emma Åhlander Hansson (M), vice chairman of Emmaboda’s municipal board, says that a different decision had been made today.
– In March 2021, the situation was completely different. In today’s situation, one would perhaps not buy such an expensive table, she says.
– Then I can also think that it is a bit expensive, she adds.
When the politicians in Emmaboda hammered through the decision in 2021, they jointly set the budget for the project. The idea of the room was to create a room for all citizens.
– The project has been part of a decision to be able to receive all visitors. Then they also decided to make the room a little nicer, says Emma Åhlander Hansson (M), vice chairman of Emmaboda’s municipal board.
Will the cost of the table lead to any consequences?
– We have to review how the routines are then we have to make a decision. Actually, nothing wrong has been committed, says Åhlander Hansson.
Policy for caution with tax money
The politicians’ decision on the budget for the reconstruction and the cost of the furniture was joint in 2021. But the criticism from the other parties has not been delayed.
The Sweden Democrats’ Johan Karlsson, who has been on the board since 2023, has proposed a new policy for “being careful with tax money in Emmaboda”.
“In this way, we increase the political control of the business and demand a way of thinking about whether our common money should be used in the municipality,” writes group leader Johan Karlsson (SD) on Facebook.
The artist: “It’s not a table”
One of two glass artists who created art for the table reacts to people calling the table just a table.
– My image of a table is a disc and four legs. But what does not come out in the debate is that it is a work of art, says Bertil Vallien P4 Kalmar.
– A fantastic sculpture, he continues.
He has no opinion that the politicians in Emmaboda thought the table was too expensive.
– What they have received for the money is a unique Swedish work of art. Then I think you got quite a lot for your money, says Vallien.