The Efficacy of Procurement Staff Professionalism in the Implementation of Preference and Reservation Policy in the Professional Regulatory Bodies in Kenya

Abstract

World Bank economic surveys have indicated that Kenya spends heavily on public procurement with losses attributed to poor procurement regulations implementation being approximated at 20% per year. According to PPOA annual report of 2015, poor procurement practices like non-compliance to PPDA regulations have been identified as a challenge to the procurement process. This study sought to evaluate effect of procurement staff professionalism on implementation of preference and reservation policy in the public sector in Kenya. The study used a descriptive survey as the study research design. The target population comprised of 116 managers drawn from the following departments in the 29 professional societies operating in Kenya; ICT department, Human Resource department, procurement department and finance department. A census was conducted on all the 116 respondents. The study used descriptive statistics such frequency distributions, percentages, frequency tables and pie charts to summarize and relate variables obtained from the administered questionnaires and inferential statistics of correlation and regression to show the relationship between the independent and dependent variables. The results of the study showed that procurement staff professionalism positively and significantly influenced implementation of preference and reservation procurement policy in the professional regulatory bodies in Kenya. The study recommended that in order to improve implementation of preference and reservation procurement policy, professional regulatory bodies in Kenya should pay attention to indicators of procurement staff professionalism such as professional competency, procurement staff skills, procurement staff integrity, procurement staff code of conduct and procurement staff knowledge on procurement regulation.