Stakeholders need to prepare contract files on time and award them to competent contractors.

For the first time in recent years in Cameroon’s public contracts history, public contract award conference has been launched in December like was the case on December 16, 2014, for the 2015 exercise. The exercise chaired by the Minister Delegate at the Presidency in charge of Public Contracts, Abba Sadou, in the presence of his peers of Finance and Economy sought to get all stakeholders on board the innovation to accelerate the procedures for a speedy contract award and therefore execution of projects financed with Public Investment Budget (PIB). A similar exercise for the ongoing fiscal year was launched on January 20, 2014.

What Could Change?

The early launch of the contract award conference is to ensure celerity in the entire contract award chain whose fruit could be visible in the rate of consumption of BIB. Speaking during the launch, Minister Abba Sadou said hope is that ministerial, regional and sub-divisional public contract award committees would hurry up with their public contract award files for effective execution of projects to commence latest April. “We want to gain as much time as possible. We have decided to anticipate this year as the 2015 State budget will be operational in January and we thought it wise to have an inventory of all projects for 2015 in December, have an idea of potential contractors, draw the calendar for launching calls for tenders, awarding the contracts, signing them as well as when executed projects are to be received,” he said. The objective, the Minister added, is that calls for tenders should be launched from January so that the two or two and half months needed to select the final bidder would  at least give enough time for project execution. “If these contracts are signed in latest the fourth month of the year, we will have for the first time eight long months exclusively for executing these projects,” he said. The Minister said the operation could clear so many obstacles that have so far stood on the way of speedy and efficient execution of public contracts.

Guarantee For Success

Launching public contract award conferences is just one among many procedures and the Ministry of Public Contracts is also just one among the many actors in the public contracts chain. Succeeding in the entire process therefore needs synergy. The Ministry of Public Contracts only awards contracts of certain magnitude whose files are prepared by the structures concerned.  Vote holders therefore need to get best contractors who have the technical and financial capacity to execute outlined projects. With this, the files should be well constituted so as to avoid rejection by tender committees which often delay the exercise.

Its success would curb or eliminate projects abandonment often masterminded by giving contracts to firms who do not have the required technical expertise or the financial strength to start off the projects before receiving something from the State. This would also limit delays, deliberate or not, which most often push stakeholders to award contracts on emergency procedures. This defeats competition in contract award and jeopardises quality.