Procuring Entities’ Practice in Awarding Public Construction Contracts: An Exposition from Contractors’ Appeals in Tanzania

Abstract

Procuring Entities' practices in awarding Public Construction Contracts are subject to petitions if they do not comply with the Act and Regulations. The tendering stage is one of the public procurement stages which is susceptible to appeals because, it is at this stage where dissatisfied Contractors who participated are allowed to appeal against Procuring Entities. Appeals in public procurement contract award demonstrate a fair system aggrieved party can petition. However, the existence of appeals may be an indicative of inadequate procurement practices by Procuring Entities’. Researchers have underscored the importance of integrity, transparency, accountability, fairness, and equality to competition in the field of public procurement. The matter of rights in the Contractor’s selection and compliance with the Act and Regulations has also been addressed. Nevertheless, there is limited knowledge of what contractors’ appeal against, and their genuine reasons. These indicate that, how the Act and Regulations are used sometimes breached, and or violated are unexamined. Therefore, this study aimed at filling this gap by identifying the nature of the contractor’s appeal cases, the arguments that support their appeals, and examining the Procuring Entities’potential violations of the Act and Regulations. Data used in this study were collected from published appeal cases by the Public Procurement Appeals Authority before subjected to qualitative data analysis techniques. NVivo 12 plus software and Microsoft Excel aided the data management and analysis process. The findings show that contractors appeal against Procuring Entities violations of the Public Procurement Act, Regulations, Rules, and Guidelines through misinterpretation, use of defective and unapproved standard documents, unethical conduct, and omissions in decision-making while handling public procurement. The study found the severity of Public Procurement Act and Regulations violation practices in preparing tender documents, conducting tender evaluations, the applicability of preference schemes, and decision making. The study recommended that to minimize the prevalence of appeals in public procurement contract awards, Procuring Entities shall abide with the requirements of the Act, Regulations. Procedures for appointing tender evaluation committee members and Penalties provided in the Act for convicted officers of the PEs shall be reviewed and . Nonetheless, Public Procurement Regulatory Authority shall prepare and issue authorized Standard Tender Documments for the procurement of works exclusive reserved for local contractors