Corruption Stinking At Region Treasury, Contractors Vow To Demonstrate Against 5% Kickback

Contractors in the North West region are planning a serious demonstration against what has become common knowledge that to get a bill for project paid, a kick back of 5% is expected by officials at the treasury.  The planned demonstration shall also culminate with a sit in strike, at the premises of the Regional treasury in Bamenda. According to one of the contractors, corruption at the regional treasury is stinking and the officials ask for bribe in broad daylight without any show of remorse.

Unpaid bills warranting signature are said to be pilling better still cumulating at the Regional treasury following the centralized system of payment bills to contractors. These contractors are complaining that they are surprised that in paying taxes, North West is the third in the country at the moment when it comes to paying bills North West is the last. Contractors lament that they pay taxes on time in order to ensure that government have liquidity to pay bills. Many of these contractors expressed regret for the day the former paymaster general for the North West, Kan Elroy Moses went on retirement saying payment procedure during his reign was faster. The coming of Taka Jean as TPG for North West region with the introduction of a strange close door policy to the public even to contractors has slowed down business at the Regional treasury. The protocol to get information or do business is too long and breeds the corruption therein.

Denouncing the perennial administrative bottlenecks that cloud the public contract sector, Banbuye Williams, a contractor in Kumbo says it is one of the causes of bad job executed in the field given the allocations for a specific contract does not get to the contractor in its entirety. Most often the administration exposes the contractor to the public guillotine without owning up to their own contribution in the bad practice. Percentages are paid in a chain to these administrators as kickbacks. To cleanse the sector, he proposed that contracts should be awarded to competent contractor who have ample knowledge of the project they gunning in for and the issue of lowest bidder should be handle carefully not allow bidders get so low in desperate bid to win the contract and only later do a bad job or better still abandon the project uncompleted. On his part the Permanent secretary of Contractors union, Fortoh Charles buttress the fact that there are no banks in the Region that finance contracts thereby leaving contractors at the mercy of Credit Unions. If bills are not visa by the Regional Treasury on time, interest on loans at the various Credit unions keep cumulating at the detriment of contractors. Eden on several counts tried to get the TPG for audience to comment on the allegation levied by the contractor but he turned it down with firm instructions that he does not talk to the private media. 

By Ignatius Nji