State Contracts Diagnosis To Improve Performance

Government officials and experts in the public contracts sector are expected to today, July 10, 2013 make recommendations that will enhance performance in the public contracts system in Cameroon. The Ministry of Public Contracts has organized a two-day workshop in Yaounde that started yesterday on perfecting public contract system in the country.

Prime Minister Philemon Yang in his opening keynote address at the workshop, called for recommendations that will ensure transparency in procedures, clarity in processing files, improvement in the quality of services and substantial increase in the rate of consuming public investment budget. Mr Yang equally called for recommendations that take into account international standards. Strengthening the State of law and intensified fight against corruption must be considered the architecture of Cameroon's public contracts system, the Prime Minister said. He prescribed frank collaboration between different actors ranging from those in charge of the operational phase, award, control , regulation and handling litigations.

The government has for some years been making efforts to improve governance and integrity in the system of award , execution and control of public contracts. The major reform in the domain, the Prime Minister specified, was the creation of the Ministry of Public Contracts during the re-organisation of the Government on December 9, 2011. The creation of the ministry has led to the correction of some dysfunctions, especially in ensuring the effectiveness and quality of executing some projects.

However, performance in consuming the public investment budget remains a problem to tackle, he said. It is for this reason that the Head of State, Paul Biya prescribed a reflection on the strengths and weaknesses of the system. The reflection, the reason for the Yaounde workshop, is also based on comparing experiences on the national systems and the advice of technical and financial partners.