Exploring anti-corruption capabilities of e-procurement in construction project delivery in Nigeria

Abstract

The use of electronic (e-­) procurement to support the execution of supply chain management activities in the different industrial sectors is permeating all regions of the world. However, in countries in sub-Saharan Africa where there is a significant level of corruption and unethical practices in the procurement process, there is a need for a better understanding of how e-Procurement can help to check the incidence of corrupt and unethical practices in construction project delivery. This study relied on a cross-sectional survey of 759 respondents, including architects, builders, engineers, estate/facilities managers, contractors, construction/project managers, quantity surveyors, supply chain managers and others to identify and analyse the anti-corruption capabilities of e-Procurement in construction project delivery in Nigeria. The results of the descriptive statistics, relative importance index and principal components analysis identified 18 anti-corruption capabilities in e-Procurement in construction project delivery with the three most important ones being the capability of e-Procurement to ensure good inventory management/record keeping; accountability by providing audit services trail and minimise direct human contacts during bidding. The key underlying dimensions of these capabilities include the advantage of e-Procurement over the traditional paper-based method; transparent bidding process and increase in competition in construction project delivery process. The findings of this study have implications, especially, on the use of e-Procurement to curb corruption in construction procurement activities.

Exploring the anti‐corruption abilities of e‐procurement in Ghanaian mining companies

“…However, in India, e-procurement was not effective in reducing procurement fraud due to the staff's low competency and professionalization as well as excessive political interference in public institutions. In Nigeria, Aduwo et al (2020) evaluated the anti-corruption capacities of e-procurement in the delivery of building projects using a relative importance index and categorical principal component analysis (PCA). The abilities of e-procurement to enable good inventory management and record keeping, accountability by offering audit services trails, and minimizing direct human connections during bidding were the top-ranked anti-corruption elements from the study.…”

“…Researchers over the years have been examining ways to curb procurement fraud, especially in developing nations. For example, Neupane et al (2014), Aboelazm (2022), Kartika (2022), Mutangili (2019), and Aduwo et al (2020) interrogated the capability of e‐procurement in reducing procurement corruption in Africa. These studies established various lists of e‐procurement anti‐corruption factors in those countries.…”

Evolution of Electronic Procurement: Contemporary Review of Adoption and Implementation Strategies

“…The adoption, development, and application of e-procurement techniques and its other variants, including e-sourcing, e-auction, and e-informing, are noted to be highly advantageous over the paper-based or manual procurement approach. The benefits range from the elimination of paperwork and paper advertisement (a positive contributor to sustainability in terms of environmental protection), increased productivity and transaction speed, relatively economical, transparent spending, regulated purchases, and limited errors and mitigating the inception and spread of corrupt-related activities and the savings in transaction cost and time within the supply chain process [45][46][47]. These can be classified as the primary benefits of e-procurement compared to the traditional or manual approaches in handling the task or activities involved in procurement-related services.…”

Mitigation of Corruption by Implementing e-Government Using Soft Computing

“…In addition, corruption has attracted increased attention among e-government researchers in the recent decade, determined by the desire to combat it and has become a hotly disputed topic in the eld of Computer Science. However, the most prevalent discussion has been on the capacity of e-government programs to combat corruption [8,9]. Some research studies verifying how corruption obstructs economic development o er a convincing argument that a ordsto challenge corruption are especially important in developing countries [10,11].…”