Improving Procurement Selection Criteria for Managing Construction Tender-Price Volatility on Public Projects (Published)
This paper investigates current knowledge with respect to adopted procurement-strategies to managing construction-price in the public sector. The paper reveals that studies are addressing mostly four main areas, i.e., procurement decision support systems, transparency and ethical considerations in procurement, identification of procurement criteria, and overcoming inconsistencies in procurement process. The paper provides for a new perspective with regard to selection of procurement strategy. Selecting a suitable procurement strategy is, therefore, an important milestone for managing project pricing. The review has revealed that the lowest bid is the main criterion of contractor selection in the public sector. There is a need to combine some if not all procurement strategies within a significantly flexible strategy that can have multiple potential advantages in the construction field by serving as a robust decision-making tool. There is a need to develop a public procurement strategy for managing construction price varaiblity and inflation by modelling for fundamental principles such as value for money, benchmarking price perfomance, reducing tendering documentation errors, that collude and cosnipre to impact price inflation, client perception and infrastructure push, and public accountability. The study, thus, deduces two principal factors that serve as key indicators of a procurement selection criterion focused on managing construction tender-price variability and inflation. These include benchmarking price performance and eliminating errors in tender documentation.
Keywords: Construction, Infrastructure, Public Sector, procurement selection criteria, tender-price
Factors Influencing Tendering Process in Public Sector: A Case of Medical Store Department (Msd), Dar Es Salaam Zone (Published)
The purpose of study was to investigate factors influencing tendering process in public sector in Tanzania. The study intended to find out the influence of training, ethical practices and ICT usage on tendering process at Medical Store Department. The study employed case study design whereby purposive and convenience sampling techniques were applied to select sample of 40 respondents from MSD. Both primary data and secondary data were employed whereby data were analyzed through qualitative and quantitative approaches. The study revealed that in regards to tendering process only procurement staffs attend training. The study further showed that, staff attends training less frequently. It was found that, there are unethical practices found in procurement function. The study further observed that, the rate of favouritism in tendering process at MSD as well as tribalism in tendering process at MSD is very low. It was reported that, MSD has well developed ICT infrastructure that supports tendering process and at large extent. The study concludes that training, ethical issues and ICT usage have significant impact in influencing tendering process at MSD. However, attending of training at less frequently could affect tendering process because training is very important as it ensures that the staffs are not left with changes that happen in the system. The study recommends that, despite the fact that unethical issues are not highly exercised at MSD, much efforts should be taken into consideration to prevent unethical practices at large because there is high influence of unethical practice in tendering process in most of public institutions in Tanzania.
Keywords: Factors, Public Sector, Tendering Process
Factors Influencing Adoption of E-Procurement in Kenya’s Public Sector (Published)
E-procurement system contributes significantly to national productivity growth through the removal of non-value added activities in procurement process. However, the adoption has been slow in Kenya and there is still a lack of studies assessing the impact of e-procurement. This study aims to explore the barriers of e-procurement adoption in Kenya and to understand e-procurement success, and why success has not been achieved using desktop research design. Insights that will be obtained from systematic evaluations regarding the barriers of e-procurement systems will help to develop an instrument to measure success; identify barriers to achieving success and establish a framework to promote success of e-procurement in the public sector in Kenya
Keywords: E-Procurement, Kenya, Procurement Process, Productivity, Public Sector