The commission of inquiry into the mismanagement of funds at the Wild Life Authority today heard that three personnel underwent training worth 14.3 million dollars.
The overall supervisor of the Protected Areas Management and Sustainable Use (PAMSU) project, David Abura, while appearing before the commission for the second time today confirmed that the money was spent on three personnel.
Two of the trained personnel, who had been hired as specialists for the project left the organization after the training while the third was incapable and lacked qualification thus being rendered irrelevant.
The project was aimed at boosting tourism by improving infrastructure and capacities in 10 national parks and 12 wildlife reserves.
The commission led by retired Supreme Court judge, George Kanyeihamba discovered that since the inception of the project in 2002, there was no capacity building yet UWA had received money for training personnel. Abura however, denied the claims saying the money was not only meant to train personnel but also carry out field operations country wide, which the commission discovered did not take place.
He added that the money was also used to teach students at the Jinja Crested Crane Hotel, where he bought electric cookers and microwaves after finding that they were using charcoal stoves to cook.
However, Abura who kept referring to documents that were not in the possession of the commissioners could not specify how many people were supposed to be trained after the training needs assessment was carried out.
Ironically he revealed that there was a Kenyan firm he could not mention that won the bid to train UWA personnel.
It was also revealed that Abura hired five drivers one for himself, a driver for the project coordinator, Juliet Byaruhanga and three others who were on standby but kept receiving money on a monthly basis, yet there was no specific duty carried out.
Abura only stated that the drivers were used to transport consultants carrying out the tourist expenditure motivation survey at Entebbe Airport.
He also consented to being negligent for not knowing how a whooping 8.3 billion shillings was spent by wild life authorities yet the money was withdrawn by the project coordination unit he headed.
The commission also put it to Abura that the quarterly reports he prepared were very similar to those of Juliet Johnson, a World Bank official. They both concluded in their reports that the project was going on smoothly. But Abura insisted their reports were made independently.
However, the commission discovered that Juliet Johnson only visited the country twice in a year and did not even go to some of the national parks she made reports about.
It was later discovered that Ms Johnson was the person who recommended Abura for the UWA job and not the permanent secretary in the ministry of tourism, trade and industry.
Abura, who kept dodging issues failed to confirm to the commission if he picked up water and electricity bills meant to be paid by the Tourism ministry.
The commission thus ordered Abura to appear again tomorrow and produce documents to prove that both his coordination unit and appointment were legal.
