Prince Mansour bin Miteb, minister of municipal and rural affairs, issued binding directions to mayors’ offices across the Kingdom to check the estimated costs of projects being implemented.

“Prices should be aligned with current, prevailing prices and reflect a value representative of the market place at the time of implementation,” said Prince Mansour.

The prince stressed on the need to preserve financial resources when implementing these projects. He added that government agencies should cooperate with specialized technical teams when setting out the specifications of the various projects, their terms and the estimated quantities of materials needed, taking into consideration current market prices.

Prince Mansour said that a Cabinet decision taken in 2008 approved of the exclusion of offers that quote a price which is 35 percent below that of the estimations of the agency.

The committees that are studying the offers should make sure that the estimated prices are moderate and correspond with prevailing market prices lest they incur fines in line with regulations.