Procurement Management and the Performance of the Public Sector in Uganda Case Study: Ministry of Water and Environment.

Abstract

This study sought to examine the effect of procurement management on the performance of public sector in Uganda, the research was guided by the following objectives: to examine the effect of planning on the performance of public sector, to establish the effect of Procurement contracting on the performance of the public sector and to determine the effect of procurement monitoring on the performance of the public sector in Uganda.

Case study research design was adopted, using qualitative and quantitative approaches with the help of a questionnaire guide which helped the researcher in collecting data which was later analyzed using descriptive statistics computed using SPSS version 16.

A sample of sixty three (63) respondents were involved in the study and these included,14 staff members from the procurement department, 28 staff from accounting department, 6 staff from the ICT department, 9 staff from the planning and project management department and 6 staff members from the internal audit department out of a targeted population of 75 employees.

Findings revealed that mistakes in procurement planning have got a wider implications on performance of the public sector, a procurement plan serves as a road map in procurement management, monitoring of public procurement is a continuous process which ensures that procurement system in use are properly implemented, Contracting aims at ensuring that goods or services are delivered on time at the agreed cost and at the specified requirements. However some loopholes exist and these include; monitoring of procurement management not being considered as a management function, little focus being put in research concerning the monitoring of procurement after the selection of the supplier/contractor, monitoring of procurement management not being addressed while tracking the progress of procurement management taking place in line with set targets at the Ministry and yet this is vital for better performance in the public sector in Uganda

Some of the recommendations proposed include, user department should be involved in drawing procurement plans, requirements should also be defined by users when drawing plans with the aim of opening up competition among others.

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