Mbale municipal council has failed to account for the money donated by the Danish city of Randers to aid the activities of small scale business enterprises.
In March 2011, Randers city donated seventy million shillings as initial deposit for a twining project to foster relationships between the two urban authorities.
The total cost of the project, which is aimed at imparting skills to the business community in Mbale, is said to be over 700 million shillings.
But trouble for the project started recently when a group from Randers Municipality visited Mbale to ascertain the progress of the project only to discover that the local leadership did not know anything about it. The Municipal Commercial Officer, Paul Sodo, the only official in the know was also out of the district.
The mishap led to accusing fingers being pointed at Sodo for personalizing the project.
Councilors including the mayor Mtwalib Zandia have no information regarding the project.
Robert Masinde, the Secretary for Finance says about seventy million shillings was wired to the council account during the time for campaigns and most councilors were out of office. He however says he does not know how it was spent. He says the councilors will convene this week to scrutinize the project.
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James Kutosi, the spokesperson of Mbale Municipal Council explains that the project had some problems because the information about it was scanty.
Kutosi says there was an emergency meeting that was held last week, where it was agreed that a committee be setup to steer the project to avoid it being run by one person.
Kutosi says about 26 million shillings out of the seventy million was paid to Eastern Private Sector Promotion to carry out a baseline survey for the needs of the business community in Mbale. He adds that the municipal council is due to meet this week to discuss the report of the project to find out how the money was spent.
The council is reportedly planning to handover the report of the baseline survey to the Danish Embassy by Friday to access the balance of more than 600 million shillings for the twining project.
Sodo, the official accused of running the project single-handedly declined to respond to the accusations.
The Danish Embassy in Kampala did not respond to an inquiry about the anomalies surrounding the project.
