Electronic Procurement Adoption in Public Procuring Entities in Tanzania

Abstract

This study was carried out following the general outcry of poor implementation of electronic procurement in public procuring entities in Tanzania. The general objective of this study was to examine the challenges faced by the public procuring entities in adopting electronic procurement in Tanzania. In this study both primary and secondary data were considered. The researchers made a survey and gathered information from four (4) public institutions namely Ministry of f inance; ministry of education and vocational training, Ilala and Temeke Municipal council. Non probability sampling was used to select the respondents from procuring specialists and other procurement stakeholders. During the study, the researchers were able to read many written procurement documents. They also managed to observe how procurement specialists do their procuring activities, and lastly the researchers conducted interview with the heads of Procurement Management Unit (PMU) of the four organizations. Data were analyzed by using SPSS. The study observed that most of the electronic procurement challenges are influenced by lack of political and top management willingness to invest in e-procurement. This has influenced other challenges for adopting e-procurement like poor legal framework support, lack of funding and poor IT skills. Therefore critical e-procurement challenges can be eliminated when the top authorities decide to invest in e-procurement. The researchers also made a number of recommendations such as reviewing and revising the PPA, 2011 and its Regulations, 2013 in order to clearly enforce the application of electronic procurement.