Public sector procurement: A private sector procurement perspective for improved service delivery

Abstract

Background: Service delivery is the core business of any government around the world, especially in developing economies. The government uses various public procurement legislation that govern how public services are procured. The current procurement legislation to acquire goods, works and services for the public at large are said to be ineffective and inefficient, hindering the accelerated provision of public services.Aim: This article aimed to ascertain the degree to which public sector procurement processes can be modelled to that of the private sector to improve service delivery.Setting: Several studies have revealed a stagnating nature of service delivery in government entities when it comes to the methods used to procure public services in South Africa. The private sector also does procurement successfully; however, it is slightly different as it is not governed by rigid public procurement legislation causing unnecessary red tapes. The red tapes that are sometimes impeding the accelerated service delivery are a major cause for concern if the government was to improve service delivery at a faster and unhindered pace.Methods: The research was qualitative in nature and used unobtrusive research methods focusing on a literature review technique. The research entailed a robust examination of the existing literature and trends analysis in the field of public procurement and private sector procurement.Results: The article revealed that there are several shortcomings in the form of red tapes that the public sector procurement is currently experiencing, which can be mitigated by adopting some of the private sector operational processes. Of course, this might require a total overhaul of the current public procurement processes including some legislation in an attempt to boost service delivery. Such red tapes include inflexibility of government procurement processes to allow for innovations, long-term supplier relationships and effective communication on future government plans. As such, some of these red tapes have a huge impact on improving service delivery, especially if fraud and corruption are involved; some processes are counterproductive and they end up allowing inexperienced suppliers to be chosen who fail to deliver.Conclusion: Public procurement process in South Africa urgently needs an overhaul to adopt some of the best practices used in private sector procurement operations to improve service delivery. This is because most public resources do not yield value for money because of rigid and stifling public procurement processes.

The challenges of procurement process for the department of correctional services

“…The literature review investigates the existing theories regarding the improvement of procurement processes (Manyathi et al, 2021).…”

“…The theories underpinning this study are determined from the perspectives of diverse sources to obtain insight into the challenges of, strategies for, as well as recommendations to enable effective and efficient procurement processes. This provides pertinent information that can be helpful to the procurement process at the DCS (Manyathi et al, 2021).…”

“…It is imperative to conceptualise the procurement process to have a clear reference to be used to recommend potential improvements to procurement processes in the DCS. According to Manyathi et al, (2021) the conceptual framework illustrates the researcher's expectations and defines the relevant variables for the study and how they relate to each other. Therefore, the study defines the procurement process and looks at key procurement processes and outlines the contractual framework of the procurement process in detail, legislative related to procurement, challenges in the procurement processes, theoretical and evidence from South Africa.…”

“…Similar research to investigate procurement challenges experienced by public and private organisations nationally and internationally has been conducted but most of the researchers do not focus on the root cause of challenges affecting the procurement process or the effects causing the ineffectiveness of the procurement process (Mhelembe & Mafini, 2019;Mante et al, 2020). According to the World Bank (2019), African countries show the procurement of goods, works, and services in the public entities are still struggling to solve problems of the effectiveness of the procurement process and it further shows that at least 15-20% of the gross domestic product (GDP) are produced and sold in the market effectively, for which it shows that the improvement from the suppliers, manufacturers and the purchasers are required to work hand in hand to improve the procurement process (European-Commission, 2019;Manyathi et al,. 2021).…”

Enhancing supply chain agility through e-procurement in a volatile frontier market

“…While some scholars have examined traditional procurement, logistics and supply chain challenges from developing economies' perspectives (Langa & Naude 2022;Manyathi, Burger & Moritmer 2021;Saruchera 2020;Tukuta & Saruchera 2015), some have partially examined the differential role of e-procurement on supply chain agility (Faheem & Siddiqui 2020;Huang et al 2021;Persis et al 2021;Yang et al 2021). However, there does not seem to be much focus specifically on turbulent developing countries, let alone Zimbabwe.…”