Effectiveness of E-Procurement in Addressing Traditional Procurement Challenges in Works Procurement: The Clients’ Perspective

Abstract

Fast growth of internet and innovation brought about diffusion in the 1990s of the eprocurement systems and popularity gain in 2000s which is progressively replacing the manual procurement process. Tanzania currently applies the new system of procurement as a requirement that all government entities should adopt due to the reviewed weaknesses like low achievement of value for money and spend analysis challenge in the traditional system of procurement. This calls to the attention on works procurement given the complexity nature of the activities and Tanzania being a developing nation. The study therefore investigated the effectiveness of e-procurement in addressing the traditional procurement challenges in works procurement focusing on the clients’ perspectives. A survey research design was adopted. The study derived data from questionnaires and interviews, involving 21 questionnaire respondents and 5 semi structured interviews both done with heads of Procurement Management Units (PMUs). Content analysis was used to analyze interview questions while SPSS (20) was used in analyzing questionnaire responses. Findings indicate the level of implementation of e-procurement in works procurement is high with a total average mean score of 4.02. Uploading of tender document online, online submission and e-advertisement for e-tendering are the highest ranked applied procedures while approval notification of award and signing of contract along with online tender opening are the lowest ranked applied procedures. Results show that the system has effectively addressed the challenges in the traditional system of procurement with an average mean score of 4.20 in which the most addressed challenges were spend analysis, fraud and corruption in tendering stage, and fraud and corruption in post award phase. The least addressed challenges being fraud and corruption in pre-tendering stage and time consuming. However, the study recommends use of stable internet and electricity and stability of TANEPs by the system administrators. The study concludes that the challenges in the traditional system are highly addressed in the electronic system therefore being more effective in comparison to the traditional system, but needs some improvement with the internet stability. Also, stability with the system itself (TANEPs) and frequent trainings to the users of the system.