| dc.description.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 | en_US |
