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# Jaffna-Born Kamzy Gunaratnam Named Norway’s Transport Minister
- URL: https://www.jaffnamonitor.com/featured/jaffna-born-kamzy-gunaratnam-named-norways-transport-minister/
- Published: 2026-09-12T02:23:11.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-12T02:23:11.000Z
- Author: Our Reporter
- Tags: September 2026, Monitor Memo

OSLO — Kamzy Gunaratnam, who arrived in Norway as a 3-year-old refugee from Sri Lanka's civil war, was appointed the country's transport minister on Friday, taking charge of a ministry that oversees Norway's roads, railways, aviation and sea transport.

Ms. Gunaratnam, 38, a Labour Party member of Parliament from Oslo, was appointed in a cabinet meeting on Sept. 11 and took office at noon the same day.

She succeeds Jon-Ivar Nygård, who had led the ministry since October 2021\. The change was part of a wider reshuffle by Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, which also brought Eileen Fugelsnes and Torgeir Micaelsen into the government.Presenting the appointment, Mr. Støre said Ms. Gunaratnam had handled her previous assignments with political skill and a sense of responsibility, and that she would now be responsible for the roads, railways, public transit, aviation and sea transport that hold the country together.

He said she would serve the whole country, noting that she had grown up in both northern and southern Norway.

The appointment has drawn criticism. Ms. Gunaratnam does not hold a driver's license and travels by public transport, making her the second Norwegian transport minister in recent decades without one, after Odd Einar Dørum in 1997\. Commentators have also noted that her experience in the field is limited to 11 months on Parliament's transport committee, and that she has never served as a minister or state secretary. Politicians in western Norway have said they fear an Oslo-based minister will deprioritize projects in their region.The ministry she inherits administers more than 100 billion kroner a year and oversees the state companies Bane NOR, Vy, Avinor and Norske Tog. It is dealing with repeated rail stoppages and a cost overrun running into billions of kroner at the Moss station project.

Ms. Gunaratnam was born Khamshajiny Gunaratnam in Jaffna, northern Sri Lanka, in March 1988\. Her family fled the civil war and came to Norway in 1991, settling first in Hammerfest in the far north before moving to Oslo, where she grew up in the Groruddalen district.She spent 14 years on the Oslo City Council, six of them as deputy mayor from 2015 to 2021\. She has represented Oslo in Parliament since 2021 and had been first vice chair of the Standing Committee on Transport and Communications since October last year.

She was re-elected in 2025.

She has spoken publicly about the war she fled. Addressing Parliament in February, she recalled being born in a country at war and described her mother taking shelter while pregnant when air-raid sirens sounded. She also raised the discovery of human remains at Chemmani in Jaffna and the unresolved question of wartime disappearances.