Level of professionalism in public procurement: A survey of selected districts in Uganda

Abstract

One of the key recommendations coming from the reforms of the Country Procurement Assessment Report (2004) was to establish a procurement cadre in the civil service and restoring professionalism in the procurement function. Since then, public procurement has undergone a series of reforms in most developing countries including Uganda which has shaped the professional way of handling the purchasing activity from merely being operational in nature to becoming a strategic function. The recognition that procurement is a truly professional function that requires trained and qualified staff that constitutes a professional procurement cadre started being embraced in Uganda ever since the reforms were embraced. In that regard, avenues for professional career advancement in the procurement field started being provided by a number of training institutions of higher learning in Uganda, so as to enable the procurement system to attract and retain qualified and experienced personnel. The environment in which procurement professionals operate today has thus undergone rapid and dramatic change over the past few years. This paper investigated the current state and future direction of how professionalism can be embraced in the procurement system in Uganda. The methodology used was a survey of five (5) selected public procuring entities where numerous cases of unethical behaviour, specifically corruption had been reported most. The survey therefore zeroed around the greater Kampala area comprising of Districts of Kampala, Wakiso, Mukono, Kayunga and Buikwe. The study reveals that there is still a loophole with attaining higher levels of professionalism, where the indicators used to gauge this are still lacking and skills required for full attainment are not well developed among stakeholders. This paper concludes by making key recommendations that would lead to the development of new procurement skills and competencies that focus on the uplifting of the professionalism in the purchasing function.

Keywords: Professionalism, procurement.