Cameroon Online E-procurement System, COLEPS, is a project of the government of Cameroon with the technical and financial assistance of the Korea International Cooperation Agency, KOICA, on the award of public contracts. This is the tool that will henceforth, beginning 2016, be used for the award of contracts in Cameroon. The message was of the Minister of Delegate at the Presidency in charge of Public Contracts, MINMAP, Abba Sadou on May 13, 2015, in Yaounde, as he chaired a ceremony to train Cameroonian officials on the use of the Korean innovation. Abba Sadou was clear when he stressed that “We will programme and awards 2016 projects through an online mechanism.”

Going by explanations, bidders will henceforth, introduce submissions from their computers via a web portal lodged at the Ministry of Public Contracts. The computerised programme, going by experts, is time saving, efficients and transparent. Meantime, the Prime Minister, Head of Government, Philemon Yang, has stressed on the need to continue with the implementation of the Public Contracts Code. He told Members of Parilaments at the National Assembly on November 20, 2015 during the presentation of the Economic, Social, Financial, Social and Cultural programme for fiscal year 2016 that;

“The public procurement environment will mainly be marked by the reform of Public Contracts Code, decided by the President of the Republic.” He revealed that; “In 2016, we will roll out a computer application designed to programme and monitor public procurements activities.  This will reduce the time taken to award contracts and to process the related files.” Government through the reform, wants to speed up the award of contracts in Cameroon, which in time past, has come under crticism for slowing down the process of execution of Public Investment Projects, PIB, for which its execution rate has hardly been admirable.

The project took off in 2013 when on July 3, the Ministry of Public Contracts and KOICA signed a Memorandum of Understanding. In July 1, 2014 an agreement to source for funding was signed. The grant agreement secured 1.7 million US Dollars (about FCFA 992,439,968) from the Korean government. The Project Management Consultant- Korean Soft I Tech already handed to government and KOICA, a Master Plan for E-procurement in Cameroon. It has also established an online portal which will permit for the publication of the State’s annual project journal, bid announcements, tendering of bids as well as the results of bids - all online. The penetration rate of Information and Communications Technologies in Cameroon is low, reason why government has opted for the gradual implementation of the system. This explains why the introduction of the new system does not mean the end of procurement commissions, said Minster Abba Sadou.