Regional, Communal Projects : Practical Guidelines For Efficiency

As a means of enhancing development through the principle of decentralisation and in accordance with the General Code on Regional and Local Authorities (RLA), Councils (Regional and Municipal) have projects to be executed at the various levels. In order to ensure the harmonious development of the country, government highlights practical modalities to be respected by these elected officials. At the beginning of every year (prior to the disbursement of Council budgets), the Minister of Finance signs a circular relating to the execution of public funds to the benefit of the population. This was the case with the recent circular of Minister Louis Paul Motaze of January 6, 2023 relating to the execution, monitoring and control of the execution of the budgets of regional and local authorities for the 2023 financial year. 
That said, elected officials have certain norms to be respected for the timely execution of public investment projects for the community. As a prerequisite for the execution of Council budgets, basic principles to be followed as outlined by the circular include understanding the accreditation of the authorising officer, the legality of local revenues to be collected during the financial year, entry of the revenue to be collected in the budget, and the receipt of the documents necessary for the implementation of the budget. 
As concerns the modalities for the execution of RLA budgets, in particular to revenue, it shall be carried out in two procedures and they are the normal procedure (accrual procedure) and the exceptional procedure (cash procedure). Execution can then begin after this stage. And for the execution of contacts within RLA, the circular states that the Contracting Authority or Delegated Contracting Authority has a period of 15 days upon notification of the contact to the holder to issue a service order for service execution to begin. Monitoring is expected to be done once the execution of services starts. “In order to allow for be...