Procurement in public institutions and electoral commission: North West Province

Abstract

Public procurement is the acquisition of goods and services for public institutions. The public procurement process normally involves certain steps to be followed in order to comply with the prescribed laws and regulation. Procurement steps involve the identification of need and thereafter drafting specification for that need and send the request for quotation (RFQ) to potential vendors. As any other public sector function, public procurement has its challenges. The Electoral Commission (IEC) as a Chapter Nine institution has to follow the public procurement process when acquiring its goods and services in order to deliver on its mandate of delivering free, fair and credible elections. All IEC projects need the procurement of materials like ballot boxes, stationery, and services like advertising and communication in order to successfully undertake elections. Vendors are therefore expected to supply these goods and services to the IEC. However, this should be done by complying with the prescribed laws and policies that regulate public procurement. The primary objective of the study is to establish the causes of poor responses by vendors when invited to participate in the tendering in the IEC North West Province. When vendors don't participate and/or cooperate in the procurement process, the resultant effects would be non-supply of materials and services or could lead to late delivery of materials and services. For the IEC in the North West Province to successfully and continuously deliver its entire constitutional mandate, then these procurement challenges should be identified and resolved. This action research is significant because the findings of this study will be recommended to Electoral Commission's management committee; therefore, this study will assist the Electoral Commission in general and IEC North West in particular to improve their procurement standards. The finding will be communicated to the vendors, and this may assist them to adhere to public procurement policies and enhance the performance of IEC. This will also help in ensuring that goods and services are procured in time and elections would be conducted in a free, fair and credible manner. This study may then assist the Electoral Commission to achieve its important mandate of promoting democracy by managing free and fair elections of national, provincial and municipal legislative bodies in accordance with national legislation. Related literature was explored and reviewed in a pursuit to answer the research hypotheses. Primary data was also collected through a structured questionnaires completed by 23 respondents who are vendors operating in the North West province. Moreover these vendors' are engaged in diverse nature of businesses such as tents and hiring, general training, poster hanging, stationery and catering. The empirical survey covered the most important aspect of procurement namely, Submission of Bid documents, Cost and Convenience of Tendering ,Bid Evaluation Methods, Communication, Training, Knowledge of Prescribed Legislations and Procurement Steps. The questionnaire included all procurement relevant topics in order to gather the most appropriate and relevant data from the respondents. The data was gathered and vendors' perceptions were statistically analysed using SSPF statistics software. The major conclusions indicated that red tape, lack of knowledge and awareness in terms of prescribed legislations and procurement steps as the some major causes of vendors' poor responses when engaged to participate in the procurement of electoral-related goods and services