120. (1) The executive committee may award any contract for professional services regardless of the amount, and any other contract involving an expenditure of less than $50 000.However, where it involves an expenditure of more than $5 000 but less than $50 000, no insurance contract or contract for the performance of work or the supply of equipment or materials or the providing of services other than professional services may be awarded except after a call for tenders by way of written invitation, as the case may be, to at least two contractors, suppliers or insurers.
For the purposes of the second paragraph, a contract for the supply of equipment includes a contract for the lease of equipment with an option to purchase.
(2) The executive committee may, after a call for public tenders by advertisement in a newspaper circulated in the territory of the Community, award a contract contemplated in the second and third paragraphs of subsection 1 involving an expenditure of not less than $50 000.The time limit for the receipt of tenders shall not be less than eight days.
Tenders shall not be called for nor shall the contracts resulting therefrom be awarded except on one or the other of the following bases:
(a) for a fixed price;
(b) at unit prices.
All tenders must be opened publicly in the presence of at least two witnesses, on the day and at the time and place mentioned in the call for tenders. All those who have tendered may be present at the opening of the tenders. The names of the tenders and their respective prices must be mentioned aloud at the opening of the tenders.
The executive committee shall not, without the prior authorization of the Minister, award the contract to any person other than the person who submitted the lowest tender within the prescribed time. If, however, to comply with the conditions for the making of a Government grant, it is necessary that the contract be awarded to any person except the one who made the lowest tender within the prescribed time, the executive committee may, without the authorization of the Minister, award the contract to the person whose tender is the lowest among the persons fulfilling those conditions, if that tender was made within the prescribed time.
If there is only one tenderer, the executive committee shall not award such a contract without the approval of the Council if the amount exceeds $500 000.
(3) The executive committee may, in the case of irresistible force which might endanger the life or health of the population or seriously damage the equipment of the Community, order such expenditure as it considers necessary, and grant the necessary contract to remedy the situation upon the written request of its chairman or the director general.
(4) The executive committee may award, without calling for tenders, any contract for carrying out work for the removal, shifting or reconstruction of conduits or installations for waterworks, sewers, electricity, gas, steam, telecommunications, oil or other fluids, provided that the contract is awarded to the owner of such conduits or installations or to a public utility undertaking at a price generally required for work of that kind by an undertaking which generally carries out such work, or that it is awarded to a municipality.
(4.1) The executive committee may award, without calling for tenders, any contract for the supply of software or for the maintenance of computer or telecommunications systems provided that the contract is awarded to an undertaking which generally carries out such work and at a price generally required for work of that kind by such an undertaking.
(5) The executive committee shall make to the Council, at each regular meeting, a report on any contract awarded by it since the last regular meeting under this section.Where a contract is awarded under subsection 3, the report of the executive committee must be made at the first regular or special meeting that follows.
(6) The Council may make a by-law to determine the contents and the modalities of presentation of a report prescribed under subsection 5.