The implementation of State contracts in Ndian Division of the South West Region has been improving over the years.

Rising from a January 12, 2016 evaluation meeting in Mundemba, the Divisional Public Contracts Follow-up Committee disclosed the good news. The rate of implementation of State contracts for 2015 in Ndian stood at 75 per cent; up from 66 per cent in 2014.

However, Committee Chair, Honorable Ngalle Daniel, disclosed that the situation was still worrisome. He said this prompted him to meet the Minister Delegate at the Presidency in charge of Public Contracts. He said he used the opportunity to complain about the long rainy season in the division, bad roads and how all this impacts work on the ground. As a result, he suggested to the Minister that some contracts be awarded on mutual agreement bases as need be.

Hon. Ngalle outlined some of the reasons for the low implementation rate, including neglect of site visits before bidding, award of contracts to enterprises with a history of abandonment of projects and the failure to set up sub-technical follow-up committees for monitoring contracts at council level. Others are poor understanding of the lowest bidder notion and the putting of personal and selfish interests ahead of public interest by members of the committee. He noted that if these issues were promptly handled, State contract execution would be better in future.

Also displeased with the recurring low PIB rates in Ndian over the years, the Member of Parliament for Bamusso, Honorable Njume Peter, frowned at the little interest shown by most Mayors. He noted that Mayors are expected to be pilots and catalysts for development, yet most of them fail to attend meetings of the Divisional PIB Follow-up Committee. As a result, he appealed to the Senior Divisional Officer to call on Mayors to sit up to prevent the population eventually rising up against them.