The North West Regional Delegate of Public Contracts, Herbert Apande Ediage, has rubbished some protesting mayors in the north west who recently met under the umbrella of the north west chapter of the united cities and councils of Cameroon,UCCC, to decry what they termed the continuous stifling of the execution of public contracts in their municipalities, by the services of the ministry of public contracts in the region.

Addressing the worry raised by the north west mayors, accusing the ministry of public contracts of stalling the execution of public contracts in their council areas, Ediage revealed that new reforms in the award of contracts provide that projects worth more than FCFA 5 million are awarded and supervised by the divisional delegation of public contracts, contrary to what used to happen in the past when such functions were carried out by the mayors.

The Delegate revealed that this is advantageous to councils in the sense that huge amounts of money that used to be spent on tenders boards will now be used by councils to carry out other development projects in the municipality.

This, he explained is because in the past, each session of the tenders board used to consume at least 500,000frs.

With an average of four tender board session project, Ediage said councils were spending FCFA 2 million per project, and with 10 of such projects in one year, up to 20 million would be spent on the tenders board alone.

Thus, now that the ministry of Public Contracts is doing all such work for free for the councils, the mayors can now use such money for other development projects in their municipalities.

Herbert Apande Ediage further disclosed that councils with huge budgets can however apply directly to the minister of Public Contracts who alone can create a tenders board for the council depending on the financial strength of the said council.

This, he noted has been the case with the Santa, Belo and Kumbo Councils in the north west, even though their members have not been appointed by his minister.

The Delegate regretted mayors who have ulterior motives of perpetrating corruption have taken the ministry of public contracts as an enemy, rather than a collaborator that is there to help them.

He however warned that any attempts by mayors to thwart public contracts award procedures will meet with severe sanctions.

Herbert Ediage also pointed out that many stakeholders are still to clearly come to terms with the fact that the mission of the ministry of public contracts is to oversee the execution of all contracts irrespective of the ministerial department, especially those worth more than FCFA 5 million.

He revealed that there are other projects known as priority investment projects which at some point were to be supervised by SDOs. However, the text regulating the execution of these projects was once again modified leaving it within the competence of the ministry of public contracts and its decentralized services.

This, he regretted has further sparked fresh tensions between administrators and the services of the ministry of public contracts.

A case in point, he noted, is in Nkambe, where the divisional delegate of public contracts has met stiff opposition from the SDO, Ndode Mesape Bernard, who has tried unsuccessfully to usurp the functions of the divisional delegate of public contracts over some of these priority investment projects.

Though the delegate has already successfully awarded 22 of the 23 contracts within his competence, the SDO has been on an offensive, accusing him of absenteeism from his duty post even when there is evidence that he is doing his work as expected.

Meantime, he said there are some state structures in the region which, by their status have their own internal public contracts tenders’ board. These include The University of Bamenda, Bamenda City Council, UNVDA, GP DERUDEP and MIDENO.

Herbert Ediage disclosed that 94% of the over 500 contracts meant for the region in the 2014 public investment budget has already been awarded to contractors while physical execution of the projects is in a very advanced stage, putting the region in a pole position in the country.

In a brief evaluation of the state of public contracts in the region six months into the year, Herbert Apande Ediage disclosed that in all the seven divisions of the north west region, all necessary measures have been taken for all contracts within the competence of his ministerial department and have been handed out for work to be done, while physical execution of the projects leaves the region amongst the best in the country.