Kigali — The African Union has said the European Union has not released the funding meant to cover the salaries of the mission in Darfur contrary to comments by EU officials claiming otherwise, RNA reports.

"The EU is yet to avail to the AU the seventh round of funds amounting to 14 million Euros and that is why the soldiers have not been paid for the last four months", Mr. Asane Ba, the AU spokesman told RNA from Ethiopia.

According to him, the EU was supposed to fund the African Union to the tune of 288m Euros but by August 2006, only 202 m Euros had been disbursed. He said the AU was even "forced" to use money from its "General Fund" to cover the upkeep of the soldiers.

Controversy arose recently when European parliamentarians (MEPs), after a mission to Darfur reported that the EU had released funding for the mission but that the soldiers had not been paid for months. The MEPs led by Mr. Josep Borrell said they would investigate the matter.

The Spanish MEP - Mr. Borell told the BBC that his delegation had discovered that the money set aside to pay soldiers in the AU peacekeeping force was not getting through. Since the force deployed in 2004, the EU has contributed 282m euros ($386m).

Salary arrears of the 7000- strong AU force have been the center of contention locally as media reports have claimed that salaries of Rwandan soldiers may have been diverted by top Defence ministry officials. The result of which was a length statement published by the Defence Ministry spokesman in reaction to a report by a local weekly Newline.

Soldiers of the entire mission are paid a gross salary of 400 USD each and Rwandan officials say the money has not been disbursed since January.

Rwanda has also complained that the AU has not paid the money the organization owes it. Rwanda says it has spent $12 million on its deployment so far, but has only received half of that back from the AU.

In March, President Paul Kagame threatened to withdraw his forces from Darfur unless more resources were committed to the African peacekeeping force, saying his soldiers had seen "no results" from their mission.

"The AU ... is being overstretched in the sense that it has no capacity, no logistics, no funds and is facing weaknesses in coordination," Mr. Kagame told reporters at his monthly briefing.

Political and ethnic fighting in Darfur, which has killed tens of thousands of people since 2003 and displaced more than two million, has often spilled over the Sudanese border into Chad, where several rebel groups are fighting to topple the government in place.