ODSHERRED: 132 pages about the foundations and responsibility for a supply scandal of historic dimensions have just been published.
On the Odsherred Municipality website, you can now read the entire district heating report. The report was commissioned by politicians in Odsherred City Council, who want to know if there is anything to blame the municipality for. But there is not, according to the lawyers. This is reported by Sjællandske Nyheder.
While the management and board of Odsherred Varme are harshly criticized in the report, the lawyers do not direct the same accusations at Odsherred Municipality. On the contrary, they assess that neither the administration, mayor nor city council had knowledge of the financial problems in the district heating project before November 2023 – and thus cannot be blamed for matters they had no insight into.
"There has been no indication in the material we have had access to that anyone in the administration or city council (...) had knowledge of or suspicion of the company's problems at an earlier time, the report states.
Dismissal of responsibility
It was not until November 2023 that information about serious budget overruns began to reach Odsherred's politicians, the report shows. And it was not until around March 8, 2024, that the municipality received "a complete and clear picture of the extent of the problems" – almost two years after the project's finances, according to the lawyers, should have led to a halt.
The law firm emphasizes that it was not the municipality's responsibility to manage or plan district heating project. That responsibility lay with Odsherred Varme's own management and their advisors.
The municipality's role was to provide general supervision of the municipally owned company and ensure that the project was economically sound when it was initiated. However, the operation and budget control did not lie with the municipality.
The municipality, as owner of the utility company, has exercised its role through the statutory tools; the general meeting, appointment of the board of directors and approval of accounts. However, the municipality was not involved in the ongoing decisions or budget follow-ups, which turned out to be inadequate and – in some cases – misleading.
The lawyer's assessment means that the municipality is not responsible for negligence, and that, according to the report, there is no basis for criticism of the administration or political committees.
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