Parliament’s Physical Infrastructure Committee has ordered for the arrest and investigation of six former and current staff of Uganda Railways Corporation (URC) after they failed to explain how Euro4,821,000 (UGX 20,661,697,170) meant for capacity building of URC was spent.The directive was issued by Mwine Mpaka, Chairperson, Committee on Physical Infrastructure during the meeting held with Uganda Railways Corporation on 7th August 2026, where the Committee was scrutinising how Euro225,984,100 loan from the Spanish Government, meant for the rehabilitation of the Metre Gauge was spent.“Escort the accounting officer and the entire contract management team to Police, you authorised payments that didn’t exist causing Government financial loss, the rest, we shall find at Police,” ordered Mpaka.The team sent out for investigation was led by Patrick Okanan (Project Manager of the loan, and others included; Isaac Natukunda (Chief Civil Engineer), Robert Ssekitoleko, Pamela Bitekyerwa, Abubaker Okyaki and Patience Baita.Information before the Committee indicates that URC budgeted for 15 experts to fly into Uganda to train URC staff, but only 2 experts trained the staff at a cost of Euro39,750 (UGX 170,359,357), URC also indicated that UGX155M will be spent on transporting staff to Spain for training, but some of the staff that were said to have taken part of the training denied ever flying to Spain and receiving the said per diem.Mwine asked, “Who took the money and how did you approve payment of UGX171Million for people who didn’t fly in? The back-team travels, back-team office, you are supposed to have 15 members of the back-team office, also, travel of UGX155Million, these members were not there, but you approved the payment of the travel from Spain. You further budgeted for UGX274Million, roughly, an equivalent of Euro63,600 for 24 staff of URC to travel to Spain, we want to know who are these 24 staff because you paid this money.”He added, “You again had six workshops in Kampala and you told us you went to Silver Springs. We have managed to retrieve the LPOs, the amount of people you had paid for to eat that day, but you budgeted for Euros36,000 euros for six workshops.”When the Project Manager, Okanan was called to respond, he said that the funds he approved were in lumpsum and there was no breakdown on how the money was spent, and when his fellow members of the contract committee were asked, they admitted that the team raised several questions about the expenditure, and no responses were provided, which saw some of the members decline to attend meetings regarding the project.Mwine asked URC to explain the value for money spent on capacity building noting, “How can a government borrow UGX20Bn to do refresher courses for a maximum of 240 people, because these are enshrined in this contract. What kind of value for money is there? How could you as an accounting officer even think or envisage to go to Spain to borrow money to train refresher courses of 240 people maximum?”David Musoke Butega, former Acting Managing Director at URC between 2003 to 2024 informed the Committee that from 1992 up to the time of concession, training for specialists was curtailed and it worsened between 2006 to 2018, Uganda Railways because did not run training, so the staff had no skills for running training, neither technical nor managerial.He noted, “Uganda Railways of 2016 had a skeleton staff of about 20. We were going to inherit operations which were being run by Rift Valley Railways, which Rift Valley Railways would go with its management. From 2006, when RVR took over the management of Uganda Railways and Kenya Railways, they moved all senior management to Nairobi. So, the training is not refresher course. This was supposed to be fundamental, basic training for managers, advanced training for managers, best training for technicians and operating staff.”Musoke defended the money spent on capacity building arguing that since 2006 to 2018, there was so much advancement in technology for managing training and thus the loan request was supposed to be a chance for us to train people in the current technology of managing things.However, Mwine rejected his explanation revealing that evidence before the Committee shows that there was specialised training provided, as people were trained for one day and there were no certificates given and most of the training involves customer care. The post Ghost Experts, Ghost Trips: 6 URC Staff Arrested Over UGX20.6bn Capacity Building Fraud appeared first on Business Focus.