Improving the procurement function in the public sector : a case study of ministry of health.

This Study was premised on empirical research gaps of unknown barriers that accentuated the costs of doing business and further than this, most of the procurement function activities are not done on schedule. It was not known what the barriers of procurement function are on attaining effective procurement functions of the Ministry of Health. A cross sectional quantitative Study enlisting 96 staff in the procurement sector was done. Data was collected using a survey questionnaire and linear regression was performed using SPSS software version 21. The Ministry of Health experiences three barriers in meeting its procurement functions and these include challenges in availability of materials from our suppliers, failing to meet the set
ideal times in the procurement processes, the type of management and insufficient financial resources to procure goods and services. In spite of these barriers, at a general level, the Ministry of Health has demonstrated that its procurement functions are effective as the regression model does not demonstrate a statistically significant outcome to predict the outcome variable effectiveness of procurement function (i.e., it is not a good fit for the data) as p is > 0.05 (0.719). Further, none of the four predictor variables show any statistically significant effect as p values are ≥ 0.05. In view of the findings made, the following conclusions were made. It is not possible that the procurement function in the Ministry of Health takes large amounts of revenue and there is no evidence that it is becoming expensive. The concerns raised are unfounded as the barriers have no influence riddled with barriers such that the sourcing of goods and services poses a challenge. Hence this Study recommends sustaining the current procurement processes.