Factors Affecting Public Procurement Performance in Ethiopia: Case of Jimma ,Mettu and Bonga Universities

Abstract

Ethiopian Universities are fully dependent on government’s budget and procurement budget comes from tax payers. However, there is misappropriation of procurement budgets. Recently, procurement budget deficit has been observed in Public Universities of Ethiopia and resources have been wasted through non-transparent procurement systems Gizachew, (2012. Employees also have been complaining about the quality of goods and services in every annual meetings held. Delays, poor qualified products and services, over pricing compared to the actual market price are the basic problems observed in procurement functions and improvements action needed. The researcher identified four factors that affect the procurement performance. Primary and Secondary source data was integrated, Primary source: include the actual information received from individuals directly concerning the problem of the study, interview, focus groups, key informant, observation and questionnaires. Secondary datasource was included previous research reports, newspaper, magazine and journal content.The research design is made based on descriptive and explanatory research.The sample size of the study is 373 respondents from academic and administrative staffs who currently working at management position and have direct relationship with procurement activities. The interpretation was conducted which can account as qualitative in nature. The study concludes that procurement planning, staff qualification, procurement procedures and utilization of ICT positively affect procurement performance at SPU. The most important factor was found to be procurement planning followed by procurement procedures as pointed out by most of the respondents. The study recommends that the public universities should also unify and embrace the changes in technology to come up with the latest ways of work to help to manage work flow management functions controlling efficiently and effectively and invite professional and competent staff for public universities,