Public contracts actors across the country are converging on Yaounde this Monday January 20 for a one-day annual conference to launch the 2014 public contracts award. The come-together is expected to define better ways of speeding up the award of public contracts for a satisfactory consumption of the FCFA 1,000 billion public investment budget contained in the FCFA 3,312 billion 2014 State budget.

Holding at a time when accusing fingers have been pointed at the ministry, justifiably or not, for bottlenecks that dragged the government into a below average execution of public investment projects in 2013, the Yaounde conference will fine-tune strategies contained in the numerous reforms in the sector as well as better arm stakeholders for efficiency.

Prior to today's conference, MINMAP boss, Abba Sadou, announced last week that vote holders could take the contract programming files either at the ministry or the external services as well as project's logbook that has been published earlier than in previous years. This is the prerequisite for better programming and award of contracts. Going by a Prime Ministerial decree of September 13, 2013 creating follow up committees of the public investment budget at national, regional, divisional and communal levels, specifying their respective roles, with participatory and results-driven management as underlying principles, the Yaounde conference that will also bring together these stakeholders, would redefine their target for 2014 in line with government's economic, financial, social and cultural programme.