THE IMPACT OF GOVERNMENT PROCUREMENT PROCESS ON EFFECTIVE SERVICE DELIVERY IN UGANDA.

A CASE STUDY OF MBALE MUNICIPAL LOCAL GOVERNMENT COUNCIL

By:
WANDULU KOSEA
2011-B141-10072

A REPORT SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF SCIENCE IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE AWARD OF THE DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN ECONOMICS AND STATISTICS OF
UGANDA MARTYRS UNIVERSITY

MAY, 2014

DECLARATION
I, Wandulu Kosea declare that the content of this dissertation is my original work and it has never been submitted to any University or institution of higher learning for any academic award.
Where relevant information to the study was got from others authors’ work, it was duly acknowledged.

Wandulu Kosea
Signature…………………
Date:…………………..

APPROVAL
This dissertation has been submitted with my approval as the supervisor and it is worthy to be credited as part of the necessary requirements for the award of the degree of Bachelor of Science in Economics and Statistics of Uganda Martyrs University.

Supervisor: Dr. F. Mwesigye
Signature…………………
Date:……………………….

DEDICATION
This dissertation is dedicated to my parents Dinah and Dison Nakhokho, brothers, sisters and friends for their endless love, moral, spiritual, emotional and financial support that helped me to grow in my education.
Special appreciation goes to my elder brother William Makuma for his unconditional guidance and financial support which have enabled me to get to this level.
May the Almighty God reward you abundantly.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I outspread my great praise and thankfulness to the Almighty God for His guidance and blessing me with wisdom which have enabled me through all challenges to this level and that He holds my future brightly. Lord I thank you for being my light and strength.
I also extend thanks to Dr. F. Mwesigye for the much needed help to complete this report. Thank you for your support.
I also express my appreciation to my friends and family members who have always been there for me especially my brother William Makuma for the good counsel, love and showing me light. Your help will forever be treasured. I also wish to express my sincere appreciation to all the people who helped me at the different stages of conducting research and producing this report. I cannot exhaust all the people because many have been of great help to me but I pray that the Almighty God blesses you abundantly for your vast support.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
DECLARATION i
APPROVAL ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iv

CHAPTER ONE 1
INTRODUCTION 1
1.1 Introduction 1
1.2 Background to the study 1
1.3 Problem statement 4
1.4 Objectives of the study 5
1.5 Research Questions 6
1.6 Conceptual Framework 6
1.7 Scope of the study 7
1.8 Purpose of the study 7
1.9 Significance of the study 8
1.10 Justification of the study 8
1.11 Definition of keywords (terms) 8

CHAPTER TWO 10
LITERATURE REVIEW 10
2.1 Introduction Error! Bookmark not defined.
2.2 Procurement process and Service delivery 10
2.3 Supplier evaluation and selection 13
2.4 Award of Contract 15

CHAPTER THREE 18
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 18
3.1 Introduction 18
3.2 Research design 18
3.3 Area of study 18
3.4 Study Population 19
3.5 Sample 19
3.6 Sampling design 19
3.7 Data management presentation and Analysis 21
3.8 Reliability and Validity of data. 21
3.8 Limitations of the study 21

CHAPTER FOUR 22
PRESENTATION AND DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS 22
4.1 Introduction 22
4.2 Demographic results 22
4.3 Procurement Strategy and Service delivery 24
4.4. Supplier Evaluation and Selection and service delivery. 31
4.5 Award of contract and Service delivery. 37

CHAPTER FIVE 43
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS 43
5.1 Introduction 43
5.2 Conclusion 43
5.2 Recommendations 43

REFERENCES 45

APPENDICES 47
Appendix I: Questionnaire Number 47
Appendix II: Interview Guide For Local Government Officials Retired Civil Servants. 52

ABSTRACT
This study explored the Impact of government Procurement Process on effective service delivery in Uganda.
The Procurement strategy, Supplier evaluation and selection, and Award of contract constituted the Procurement process while education, health and infrastructure exemplified service delivery. There has been a public outcry about poor service delivery throughout Uganda, where citizens in various parts of the country have demonstrated against the state of public services. In this study, we investigated the persistent inefficient service delivery by government despite measures taken to improve it.
We used both quantitative and qualitative research designs with a cross-sectional case study approach and Mbale Municipal Local Government Council as the case study. Data was collected using questionnaires and interviews from local government officials, beneficiaries and retired civil servants. The data was analyzed using SPSS and presented in table form.
The study established that unnecessary political influence, poor documentation, inadequate funding, corruption and bribery are the main factors that influence procurement processes.
The study concludes that sound procurement strategies, supplier evaluation and selection, and award of contracts can ensure better services delivered in education, health and infrastructure.
The study recommends that there should be more emphasis on clear documentation of all specific activities in the procurement process, more strict measures should be put in place to check on political influence and there should be adequate funding of members on the contracts committee to check on corruption and bribery. CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Introduction
This study examined the impact of government Procurement Processes on the effective service delivery in Uganda. These were illustrated using the conceptual framework as shown below. The study was prompted by the persistent ineffective service delivery despite measures taken to improve it for instance the enactment of the Procurement act.
This chapter constitutes of the Introduction, Background to the study, Problem statement, Objective (general and specific), Research questions, Research hypothesis, Conceptual framework, Scope of the study, Justification of the study, Significance of the study, Purpose of the study, and definition of Keywords (terms) used in the study.
1.2 Background to the study
Government modes of delivering services to the people are largely ineffective and much as the poor may appreciate the government’s role in providing the pressing needs like health and education services, they feel they are less changed by these government interventions (World Bank, 2002). There is limited interaction between the poor and the people’s government representatives to effect service delivery to the people. As people try to access the services provided by the government, they cannot get all as allocated to them due to the cumbersome process which is characterized by high embezzlement levels.
It is quite clear that where the responsible local leaders are co-operative and transparent in the delivery of services which may be initiated to bring people out of an alarming situation of poverty, government or donors may be encouraged to support the program. Research undertaken by the World Bank (2003) showed that the program to defeat “River blindness” in Africa had an international reputation (in 1980s) as one of the most successful health programs. This could have been so because the African governments were transparent, accountable and helped in sensitizing their people about the problem at hand. In some African countries, however, there are still some leaders who are not transparent enough to the extent that they can even embezzle funds meant to bring people out of an alarming situation.

Procurement practices require a labour force with effective management skills that develop clear and professional specifications with full knowledge of a competitive process, negotiation and monitoring skills. But in Africa, the most challenging obstacles to public procurement reforms include loose or opaque rules that are also poorly enforced, protection of vested interests, and procurement used as a basis for rewarding political supporters. Hunja (2003) says that efforts are taken by many developing countries to institute and implement changes as a result of pressure from donors but all these are frustrated by a clique of politicians or civil servants with vested interests in maintaining the status quo. He cites weak or inconsistent enforcement of new legislation, lack of an effective procurement process, complexity of substantive issues involved and poor management of the function.
The Procurement process involves many steps to follow which may waste time and incur more costs to deliver services. Under the East African Community (EAC), trade procedures at boarder points involve a big number of stakeholders like customs officials, freight forwarders, insurers, police plant inspectors, quality insurance, and many more. For better service delivery, it is important that all these different agents work in tandem. Where the inspection of commodities is done by many different agents, importers have to present different documents to each inspection unit which wastes time, many and delays decision making.
Several political and economic actors have remarked that Uganda has one of the best policies to address service delivery challenges but still remains poor at implementing them. The government plan of service provision to the members of the country (Uganda) have been well formulated despite the weakness in the modes of delivery of those services (like Education, Health and Infrastructure) to the target groups who may not fully receive the help as planned by the government.
It is believed that where service delivery by the government to the citizens is delivered as planned, people’s welfare is improved which encourages economic progress and proper utilization of available resources which should benefit the whole economy as it is hard for government to meet each and every individual’s needs independently. Therefore, government identifies more common pressing essential needs so as to improve on people’s welfare.
Resource allocation to all citizens should be government’s target but modes of delivery differ depending on how effective the way is and the cost incurred in that particular mode. Government should of course choose to use less costly and more effective modes that ensure effective service delivery.
For a number of years, citizens may be convinced to a certain extent, with the “state of the nation address” by the president and the national budget plan by the finance ministry for the financial year but later, they are disappointed when it comes to implementation to ensure effective service delivery. Doubt against the government is raised at the end of the financial year for which the budget was formulated –when the targeted goals of the budget have not been visibly been achieved as planned. The government in some cases, however, claims to have allocated the resources as planned and assigns blame to the political or local leaders through whom it delivers some services for cases of embezzlement of the public resources and poor service delivery in general. This therefore calls for strict laws to castigate such culprits. To the upset of the citizens, such laws are weakly administered in case the culprits are discovered and there is bias in the way that the laws may work for example those in government’s opposition -more so political or local leaders are particularly targeted compared to those in favour of the ruling government party. This politicizes service delivery and hence leading to poor implementation or supervision of service delivery.
It is easier to provide public services when most of the resources are state owned. Procurement in Uganda’s public sector was centralized under the central tender board which always purchased all commodities for all government departments in the country. But this centralization was characterized by a lot of inefficiencies, inconsistencies, and corruption in service delivery associated with the procurement process and bureaucracies (red tape). But still even after decentralization, more cases of corruption and ineffectiveness are reported. According to the Uganda Country Self-Assessment report and Program of Action (2007), some government officials are still sympathetic to or in some instances glorify the corrupt hailing them as hard-working.
Donor countries and organizations are encouraged to give assistance to the needy through a well-organized or formulated system of the government. However, through the process of delivering the funds or help to the intended beneficiaries, some funds are embezzled by government officials responsible for the delivery. For example, there was an incidence in Uganda where 13.2 billion shillings were embezzled in the prime minister’s office through which the funds were sent (New Vision, 2012). These funds were donated by the governments of Denmark, United Kingdom, and Ireland which were meant for rehabilitation under the Peace, Recovery and Development Program (PRDP) in northern Uganda which was destroyed by the Lord’s Resistance Army rebel group under the command of Joseph Kony. The government through this systematic process of delivery of donor funds is expected to be accountable of the funds but even the top government officials seem not to be knowing the culprits; which draws questions to the management.
Accountability concerning public resources is one of the major factors that affect service delivery. Research undertaken by the Uganda Country Self-Assessment Report and Program of Action (2007) stressed that there should be a reform on accountability and personnel systems in the civil service to ensure appropriate management of public funds and should ensure effective punishment and prosecution of the offending accounting officers. However, in Uganda, such reforms are weak and ineffective with blame going to political influence on anti-corruption agencies like the Inspectorate of government.
From the 1990’s, emphasis has been put on decentralization aimed at effective service delivery of the state through local governments. According to the Uganda Local Government Act 1997, the local governments were authorized to levy taxes to support the procurement of goods and services in order to improve service delivery. However, since the implementation of this decentralization policy, there are still problems of ineffective and inefficient service delivery which are rooted in a dysfunctional procurement process at local government level. The Inspector General of Government in a national Integrity Survey in 2006 revealed local government tender boards to be the second most corrupt in Uganda. Research undertaken by Bwegyeme (2011) indicates that this ineffectiveness and inefficiency is due to corruption in local governments citing that award of contract is biased where contracts are given to councilors, Tender Board officials’ relatives, tender board members, civil servants without considering the consequences which may be faced – yet the procurement budget at local government amounts to around 31% of the total local government budget.
1.3 Problem statement
The government of Uganda is expected to plan and allocate resources for the provision of some essential services. Regardless of the effort by the government of Uganda to improve the delivery of services, the procurement process is associated with bureaucracies which lead to unsatisfactory delivery. Uganda’s procurement authority was decentralized from the Central Tender Board to the Local Government Tender Board in order to eliminate the weaknesses of ineffective and inefficient service delivery (Ministry of Local Government, 2003). The form of decentralization adopted by Uganda is Devolution. But taking the case of Mbale Municipal Local Government Council, there is still unsatisfactory service delivery. Farmers complain of inefficient agricultural inputs, patients complain of limited or no drugs and poor patient-doctor ratio in government hospitals, schools complain of inadequate equipment and some of the roads are in poor state. However, government continuously talks of the funds it allocated for the provision of these services. For instance, in the agricultural sector, government introduced the National Agricultural Advisory Services (NAADS) program which was planned for 25 years to improve on their agricultural production but agriculture in most areas is still of subsistence nature associated with poor quality products. NAADS was introduced with the mandate of contributing to the modernization of the agricultural sector in order to increase total factor productivity of both the land and labour for the benefit of the farmers. However, in June, 2010, the president of Uganda suspended NAADS funds after receiving information that only a few farmers were benefiting as a result of discrimination by some NAADS officials together with reported massive corruption. In February 2014, the president announced the intention to drop the NAADS programme citing that it had failed to live to the targeted expectations. In July, 2002, the prime minister of Uganda called upon the Inspector General of Government to probe reported bribery concerning the Bujagali dam project. It was alleged that a contractor gave a government official a bribe of around US$ 10,000 to influence the award of the contract (New Vision, 2002). This poor kind of transparency prompted various donors to tell the World Bank to block the construction of the dam as it was one of the factors that breached the internal World Bank guidelines. At local government level, there are wide spread claims of paying kickbacks in order to get a contract like repair and construction of local governments roads. Could the problem have been the government procurement process associated with cumbersome processes (bureaucracies or red tape) that may be hindering effective service delivery? Therefore this called for the need of research to investigate the “Impact of government Procurement Process on effective service delivery in Uganda.”
1.4 Objectives of the study
1.4.1General Objective
To investigate the Impact of government Procurement Process on effective service delivery in Uganda.
1.4.2 Specific Objectives
To assess to what extent is Procurement strategy affecting service delivery.
To find out to what extent is Supplier Evaluation and Selection affecting service delivery.
To establish to what extent is Award of contract affecting service delivery.
1.5 Research Questions
How does procurement strategy affect service delivery?
How does Supplier evaluation and selection affect service delivery?
How does award of contract affect service delivery?
1.6 Conceptual Framework

Service delivery is affected by the level of effectiveness in the procurement process. There is a direct relationship between procurement process and service delivery. A sound procurement process leads to good quality delivery of services.
However, there are also other factors which affect service delivery but they are not part of the procurement process.
1.7 Scope of the study
1.7.1 Conceptual scope
The conceptual scope was about the Impact of government Procurement Process on effective service delivery in Uganda. It focused on Procurement strategy, Supplier evaluation and selection, and Award of Contract.
1.7.2 Geographical scope
The Impact of government Procurement Process on effective service delivery in Uganda using Mbale Municipal Local Government Council, as a case study. This is because Mbale is one of the oldest districts in Uganda and hence the results obtained using it as a case study therefore apply to most local governments.
Mbale Municipal Local Government Council is located in Mbale Municipality. Mbale Municipality is located 340 10’ East of the Prime Meridian and 10 03’ North of the Equator, situated at the foot of Wanale Ridge, (8,000 ft), the most prominent westerly ridge of Mt. Elgon. It lies in the East of Mbale District which is in Eastern Uganda, 45km North of Tororo town, 56km southeast of Kumi town, 57km East of Pallisa town and 55km Southwest of Kapchorwa town. Mbale is 256km and 220 km via Tororo and Tirinyi respectively from Kampala, the capital city of Uganda. Mbale Municipal Local Government Council monitors the working of three divisions (Nothern, Wanale and Industrial) which consist of eleven Wards and eighty-three cells
1.7.3 Time scope
The research was conducted in 2014. The heterogeneity in the target population involving both current and retired civil servants meant that the researcher took longer collecting data.
1.8 Purpose of the study
The purpose of the study was to evaluate the government procurement processes of Mbale Local Government (through Mbale Municipal Local Government Council) in order to establish if its weakness was the cause of ineffective service delivery. Procurement Process was characterized by Procurement strategy, Supplier evaluation and selection, and Award of Contract while Service delivery was characterized by Education, Health and Infrastructure. In view of these operations, the study determined and described the impact of Procurement strategy, Supplier evaluation and selection, and Award of Contract on Education, Health and Infrastructure.
1.9 Significance of the study
This study should generally contribute valuable knowledge concerning the procurement process as it enhances and promotes proper procurement practices awareness in Local Governments in Uganda. The study also suggested appropriate policy changes where some Local Government officials will use the findings to improve on service delivery. The study expected to produce some hitherto unavailable knowledge and therefore it will guide policy makers at all levels in formulation of appropriate policy changes and enacting of better legislation and controls. The findings will also be used by other stakeholders like donor countries, Non-Government Organizations, academicians and managers in public and private sector in the management decisions on procurement. The study is expected to suggest significant recommendations that are expected to improve practice.
1.10 Justification of the study
Since a big percentage of government expenditure is through the procurement process, the researcher was of a view that the delivery of goods and services is affected by some factors like Procurement strategy, Supplier evaluation and selection, and Award of Contract. Therefore, the researcher tried to investigate the cause of these effects in order to devise means of addressing these issues.
1.11 Definition of keywords (terms)
Procurement is the acquisition of goods, services and works to certify needs.
Government (Public) Procurement is the acquisition, usually by means of contractual arrangement after public competition, of goods, services, works and other supplies by the public service.
Procurement process refers to a sequence of interrelated procedures a consumer goes through to buy (purchase) goods, works and services.
A Procurement Strategy is a plan or process developed to ensure procurement is designed to attract the strongest possible field of tenders for services, goods and products. It is the skillful management of the supply chain to ensure that procurement activities meet commissioning needs of residents of the borough or municipality. Local governments implement purchasing strategies in order to make cost effective purchasing decisions from a group of efficient suppliers who deliver quality goods on time and at mutually agreeable terms.
Devolution is the statutory granting of powers from the central government of a sovereign state to government at a sub national level, such as a regional, local, or state level. It is a form of decentralization where the local government remains accountable to the public and central government for the use of funds.
Supplier evaluation is a process of approving suppliers by quantitative assessment.
Supplier selection is a process by which firms identify and contract with suppliers.
A contract is an official legal agreement usually written between different parties.

CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Introduction
This chapter analyzed and acknowledged what different scholars have said about the Impact of government Procurement processes on effective service delivery. It looked at different procurement stages and how they affect service delivery. It particularly focused on Procurement strategy, Supplier evaluation and selection, and Award of Contract. These are considered the pillars of the study.
2.2 Procurement process and Service delivery
Service delivery to the target beneficiaries is entirely influenced by the management of the Local Governments. Management refers to analysis (vision, mission, strategic objectives), making of decisions and actions an organization undertakes in order to create and sustain competitive advantages.
The general objective of the Local Government Management and Service Delivery program is to plan and manage human and financial resources for effective and sustainable delivery of Local Government services (Ministry of Local Government, 2011). One of the specific objectives is to strengthen public financial management at Central and Local Government levels and ensure the efficient, effective, transparent and accountable use of public resources as a basis for poverty eradication and improved service delivery.
The Uganda Country Self-Assessment report and Program of Action (2007), communication and accountability are not seriously enforced by local governments at all levels as most elected leaders rarely consult their constituents during the process of decision making. This therefore may lead to weaknesses in service delivery because the beneficiaries do not meet their most pressing needs.
There are different stages involved in the procurement process which include;
Definition of the need
Development of a Procurement Strategy
Supplier Evaluation and Selection
Award of Contract
Induction and Integration.
2.2.1 Procurement strategy and Education
Procurements are sometimes broken down into many unnecessary small departments which may also affect service delivery as many funds are spent through these various units. According to the New Vision (2013), the Auditor General, John Muwanga warned accounting officers against splitting big procurements in order to seek gains for themselves. He said, “There is a problem with record keeping characterized by false documentation and issuing of statements” which he described as an area prone to procurement corruption.
Research undertaken by the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic development (2007) on public service delivery in Uganda indicated that there was a commendable progress towards the Education sector investment plan (ESIP) targets and that a remarkable number of children had enrolled in schools following the government policy of Universal Primary Education - citing that the total numbers of children accessing primary education in the country rose continuously.
Much as other co-operant issues like teachers on pay-roll, number of classrooms, pupil-teacher ratio and pupil-classroom ratio had continuously improved, the research stresses that parents of pupils perceived that the major constraints of their children’s performance in schools were factors related to school, staff and management (for example in adequate buildings and poor attitude of staff). Managing expectations is a big problem yet the planning process in the local government is supposed to be highly participatory in the planning process.
Research undertaken by Kukkiriza (2007) found that monitoring and evaluation is not taken seriously by local governments and therefore the same mistakes are repeated continuously because local governments do not monitor the planning process from which they would have documented the challenges faced in order to improve on their development plan in the next planning cycle.
2.2.2 Procurement strategy and Health.
According to the National Health Plan (1999), the overall development goal of the health sector is “the attainment of a good standard of health by all the people of Uganda in order to promote a healthy and productive life” and its strategic plan has been “reduced morbidity and mortality from the major cause of ill health and premature deaths and reduced disparities.” Therefore improving the population’s health conditions and ensuring access to health care for all is an essential component of the overall government strategy of reducing poverty and promoting economic growth.
Despite this, the research stresses that approximately a half of the population of the households was to some extent distant from the nearest health centers. This was experienced more in rural areas thereby citing major differences of service delivery between rural and urban areas. The research also shows that some drugs were unavailable in government health units or hospitals and therefore people incurred costs of the services and questions were drawn to staff at the government health centres yet the issues of service delivery in the health sector greatly depend on the access and quality of the services - these are used to assess the beneficiaries of the health sector improvements.
Kukkiriza (2007) shows that monitoring and accounting for activities and expenditures was inefficient – and that most local governments failed to comply with the requirements for timely reporting. She also expresses that surveys (by government) of tracking expenditure revealed that very little of the allocated budgets were reaching the intended beneficiaries. Furthermore, many health workers are not fully committed to their work which may result from less effective motivation strategies thereby raising a risk of patients’ lives as these employees may neglect their obligations. According to the Saturday Monitor (2014), patients in many health centres in kasese district were at risk of death after some of the recently recruited health workers were confirmed absent from their respective duty stations. The district secretary for social services, Peluce Kabagenyi stressed, “I’ve confirmed that 40% of the newly recruited health workers have either absconded or abandoned the duty in the district”.
2.2.3 Procurement strategy and Infrastructure
According to the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic development, promotion of effective and efficient services of transport to facilitate the achievement of the Poverty Eradication Action Plan (PEAP) outcomes and other priorities is the objective of the Government’s Media Term Transport Sector Policy and that there was reported improvement in maintenance of feeder roads (since road transport is the major type of transport in Uganda) which were managed and maintained by local governments. The research also shows that there were major differences between rural and urban concerning the usability of roads citing that most of the rural population has community (or feeder) roads as their nearest roads. This may force them to incur extra costs to cover the distance to these roads. Since most agricultural activities are carried out in rural areas, commercial production may be discouraged as farmers fear to incur these high costs to transport produce to the available market.
However, Mbabazi, Karuhanga, and Mukokoma (2009) asserted that public procurement, in some cases has management that is weak and inconsistent in enforcement of new legislation and poor management of the function associated with discrimination which leads to ineffective service delivery. One of the functions of the management of the local government (particularly the Heads of Department) is to ensure that goods, services and works are received, checked and certified as to the specified quantity and quality before payments but poor management may be reluctant to do this which leads to poor service delivery.
In the procurement process, all the specifics and objectives of a project in question drawn in the procurement plan to minimize inconveniences. However, some strategies used do not yield effective results. In reaction to the reading of the 2013/2014 financial year budget, Kaddu Kiberu, the chairperson of the Uganda Manufacturers Association cited that government had promised to work on roads over the past financial years but has not been successful. One of the Members of Parliament, Chris Baryomunsi, continued and stressed that the challenge that has persisted is the budget discipline, citing that some infrastructure projects pledged in the previous budget had not been worked on.
2.3 Supplier evaluation and selection
Management in the local government is divided into different departments with varying roles and responsibilities. According to the Ministry of Local Government (2003), Technical Evaluation Committee (TEC) is one of the departments whose role is to evaluate bids and rank them in order of prices and quality. After this, TEC submits its evaluation and assessment reports to the Local Government Tender Board (LGTB) to guide it in the award of contract decisions basing on whether the bidders are eligible and responsive to the terms of reference. The Ministry of Local Government (2003) stresses that Local Government Tender Boards should consider factors like; price level, ability to meet essential and desirable requirements, customer service, quality assurance capacity and adoption to local conditions, past performance, supplier innovation, supplier financial strength, risk management, compliance to conditions of contract, lack of conflict, qualification and guarantee offered.
According to the Ministry of Local Government (2003), the secretary of the Local Government Tender Board should maintain a list of approved suppliers and contractors which list shall be kept under constant review by the Board and renewed annually at the beginning of the financial year to remove inefficient service providers. But where the Board officials are easily compromised, such ineffective suppliers will be left to continue providing services and this affects the intended target beneficiaries because they receive poor quality services.
According to the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic development (2007), “the proportion of approved posts filled by appropriate trained health workers” was one of the key indicators that measure health sector performance and determine the contribution of the health sector to overall national health and broader outcomes as identified by the Poverty Eradication Action Plan (PEAP) and that there has been marked improvement in a number of health sector input and output indicators.
However, tender boards and the tendering process are hardly transparent resulting into bribery, corruption and poor service delivery (Nsamba, 2007). This is because through the process of evaluating and selecting bidders, unqualified firms are selected and given contracts if they are known by the local councils and tender boards; with less consideration of their capacities, eligibility, and responsiveness. He says that tender boards collude with councilors to award projects to themselves or unqualified companies instead of the best bidder. This leads to inefficient and ineffective service delivery.
Research undertaken by Kukkiriza (2007) shows that some lower level councils have failed to meet the minimum performance requirement set by the Ministry of Local Government as a result of less commitment to work where local politicians have, in some cases deviated from planned guidelines or programs.
For example;
In the education sector, teachers, administrators and learning institutions may be considered appropriate and qualified yet they do not meet requirements of the qualified staff which may affect the quality of education because of their inappropriate skills whereby learners attain poor grades. According to the New Vision (2014), over 10 pre-primary and primary schools in Bushenyi-Ishaka municipality were closed on 13th February, 2014 by the area education authorities over the lack of basic facilities and valid operational licenses. Dan Mugenyi, the Municipal Education Officer stressed that these schools did not have even half of the required facilities and that some schools were located in residential houses. He further said these schools do not employ qualified teachers.
In the health sector, medical practitioners may be approved yet they are not yet qualified thereby putting patients’ lives at risk whereby reported cases of deaths increase.
In the transport sector, engineers may be approved to work as professionals yet their performance capacities are low thereby putting economic activities at risk whereby some roads are impassable and some buildings are inadequate.
All these may arise because compromise by Local Government Tender Board officials. Some suppliers may be evaluated and selected yet they are not eligible and responsive but in order to bid and win contracts, they duplicate their documents.
Mbabazi, Karuhanga and Mukokoma (2009) are of a view that public procurement reforms are affected by officials who have vested interests in the evaluation and selection process and the blame is put on loose rules and penalties that are poorly enforced.
According to the Ministry of Local Government (2003), some of the factors to be considered when selecting a supplier include; ability to meet essential and desirable requirements, quality assurance capacity and adoption to local conditions, past performance, supplier innovation and financial strength, compliance to conditions of contract, qualification and guarantee offered among others. However, during the 2013/2014 financial year budget reading, the Minister of Finance noted that the construction of some roads from the previous financial year was behind schedule stressing her blame on delays caused by contractors’ failure to get machinery in time. One of the roads that were not completed in time was the Tororo-Soroti road. Therefore, this means some suppliers selected are not eligible enough to carry out contractual obligations in the procurement process because every project should be carried out with the agreed upon time limits and this requires selecting a contractor who is ready with all working material.
2.4 Award of Contract
Before the award of a contract, the supplier should have gone through evaluation and selection and therefore the local government should award the contract to the supplier with the desired specified qualities – most preferably the one with the lowest costs of items and low risk. When this has been collected and effectively done, better services are delivered to the target beneficiaries.
However, research undertaken by Nsamba (2007) reveals that there is manipulation of tender boards to intimidate technical staff that would have been whistle-blowers to effect transparency. This leads to the award of the contract to wrong and inefficient suppliers who may in turn deliver poor services resulting from less consideration of supplier capacities, eligibility and responsiveness. For example; the Ministry of Local Government (2003) emphasizes award of contract to suppliers with lowest prices and best quality of items. But where Local Government Tender Board officials are not transparent, contracts may be awarded to suppliers who may not fulfill these qualities but they get them through bribes and corruption where the difference between what the tender boards are expected to pay (basing on contract documents) and what they actually pay is taken and shared by the tender board officials.
Mbabazi, Karuhanga, and Mukokoma (2009) also reveal that the responsible top Local Government (District Service Commissions) officials may use procurement as a basis for rewarding political supporters and sometimes to finance political parties. This makes some individuals to gain at the expense of others leading to ineffective service delivery. For example the Ministry of Local Government (2003), emphasizes that suppliers within the Local Government should be given first preference in case they are eligible and responsive but Local Government Tender Board officials may award contracts to suppliers of their favor who are from outside the Local Government while leaving those from within (yet they may be eligible and responsive); which may affect service delivery. Besides, advertising for bids should be open to the public but in some cases the Tender Board officials may contact some few suppliers with aims not known to the public.
Sometimes, contracts are awarded to incompetent suppliers who may fail to meet all the specified contractual obligations and this is because of certain reasons –mostly political. These mistakes are kept as secrets thereby giving wrong information to the public which limits effective service delivery. In reaction to the reading of the 2013/2014 financial year budget, the works and transport state minister, John Byabagamba said the government decided to give more priority to the transport sector to complete constructing the roads which were promised to the voters in the 2011 National Resistance Movement manifesto (New Vision, 2013). He continued and stressed, “In this ending financial year, we finished the entire budget in the third quarter of the year due to the increased efficiency from the contractors”. He said that more competition among the contractors has compelled them to finish many of the roads ahead of schedule. However, when the Finance Minister was reading the budget, she stressed that some of the roads like the Tororo-Soroti had not been completed (New Vision, 2013).
According to the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Regulations, effective competition should be evidenced by use of the open bidding, restricted bidding or quotations and proposals procurement methods and that the procuring and disposing entity should use open bidding as the preferred method of procurement. However, the Observer (2012) reports an incident of bribery to influence the award of a contract concerning the Karuma hydro-dam project in Uganda. They stressed that the East African newspaper alleged that some members of the 12-person bid evaluation committee had accepted bribes to allow a bid by a Chinese firm to proceed to the pre-qualification stage, despite serious doubts about its ability to execute the work. In the East African, it was asserted that the prospect of Uganda slipping back to high cost thermal generation is growing as procurement for the 600MW Karuma Hydropower station continues to be dogged by allegations of impropriety.

CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.1 Introduction
This chapter explains the strategy and steps followed to carry out the study. It analyses the research design, area of study, study population, sampling design (techniques), sources of data, research instruments (techniques of data collection and procedures), data processing and data analysis.
3.2 Research design
A blend of quantitative and qualitative research designs with a cross-sectional case study kind of strategy was used with, Mbale Municipal Local Government Council Local Government, Mbale used as a case study. Quantitative strategy is used when the research incorporates the statistical element designed to quantify the extent to which the target group is aware of an issue in question. Qualitative strategy is flexible and interactive which helps to relate particular aspects of a behaviour to a wider context through the discovery of unexpected and in-depth investigation of particular issues. Case study is a research design that involves intensive, descriptive and holistic analysis of a single entity. This strategy is used because a case study design is ideally suitable for studies where a single entity is studied in depth in order to gain insight into the larger cases since the researcher is going to use this case study (Mbale Municipal Local Government Council Local Government) to generalize the operations of local governments in the economy. Therefore, with this strategy, smaller samples can be used for in-depth analysis. A questionnaire was administered on a cross-sectional basis.
3.3 Area of study
The area of study was Mbale Municipal Local Government Council. This is because Mbale is one of the oldest districts in Uganda and hence the results obtained using it as a case study therefore apply to most local governments. The factor of language also influenced the researcher’s choice because he was born and raised in Mbale which helped reduce on the language problems as he understands and speaks the local language (dialect) fluently.
3.4 Study Population
The target study population was the local government officials and the beneficiaries including the retired civil servants because the researcher expected them to be well-versed with the issue in question. The government plan to decentralize some economic power to local government level is to ensure effective service delivery to all the citizens. Therefore, the researcher felt that this target population would provide an insight to the issue of service delivery because;
The local government procures goods and services through a Tender Board and therefore the respective officials would be significant to this research as they would provide necessary information about how the system works.
Beneficiaries are the target group to which services are offered by the government hence the researcher expected them to have the necessary information about how they feel about the service providers.
The retired civil servants have experienced the government system of delivering services to the citizens and therefore the researcher felt they had some significant information about the strengths and weaknesses of the government modes of service delivery.
3.5 Sample
The sample consisted of 120 respondents selected from the target population. These 120 respondents included 5 Tender Board officials, 15 retired civil servants and 100 beneficiaries. The distribution of the respective sample size was chosen depending on the size of each stratum.
3.6 Sampling design
A combination of sampling methods was applied to accommodate a variety of respondents and geographical differences. The methods included a combination of purposive sampling and stratified random sampling. The sample size was drawn basing on the homogeneity and proportion of a stratum to the population. The criteria applied in the selection of the subjects included the position held and the willingness to participate.
Purposive sampling is used to collect focused information. The researcher was of the view that the study population was significant in the study as many local government officials are directly involved in the procurement process, the beneficiaries are directly affected by the service delivery modes by the government and the retired civil servants have an experience of how government service delivery affects the beneficiaries. Therefore, purposive sampling was used to select typical and useful cases for the study.
Stratified sampling identifies subgroups in the population and groups a population into separate homogenous subsets that share similar characteristics and the selects from each subgroup so as to ensure equitable representation of the population in the sample. The researcher was of the view that the target population was not uniform because local government officials, beneficiaries and the retired civil servants may not be having the same view about service delivery and so this target population could not be considered to be homogenous. Therefore, stratified sampling was used to ensure that the target population was divided into different homogenous strata and each subgroup (with respect to characteristics) was represented.
3.6.1 Data collection
Data was collected from both primary and secondary sources. The primary data was collected through use of questionnaire administration and personal interviews. The selection of these tools was guided by the nature of data to be collected, the time available as well as the objectives of the study. Questionnaire administration applied to the beneficiaries and interviews applied to both local government officials and retired civil servants. The researcher was of a view that the use of these several methods or techniques would ensure that the collected data would be comparatively analyzed. This was to help develop similarities and consistencies which would enable the researcher to draw (develop) relevant conclusions. The researcher was mainly concerned with the views, opinions, perceptions, feelings and attitudes of the target population and such information could easily be collected through use of the above stated tools given the fact that time was be limited.
The researcher intended to use semi-structured instruments to enable him balance between the quantity and quality of data collected as well as providing more insight information which is useful for a fuller explanation of the phenomena under investigation.
Questionnaires and interviews were used since the study was also concerned with variables that cannot fully be directly observed, such as views, opinions, perceptions and feelings of the respondents. Such information can be collected through questionnaires and interviews.
3.6.2 Research procedure
The researcher developed a proposal over a period of about four months (December to March) under the guidance of the supervisor. Once the proposal was ready, the researcher sought permission from the faculty administration (Dean of Faculty of Science) to proceed to collect data in April. After the approval of the proposal and relevant funding, the research begun the field study immediately after the preliminary arrangements were made to ensure proper use of the specified time. Quantitative data will be collected from the beneficiaries using questionnaires while qualitative data will be collected from the officials and retired civil servants using interview administration (together with some document analysis). All the data was collected by the researcher.
3.7 Data management presentation and Analysis
The data was mainly analyzed quantitatively using numerical statistics in SPSS. Different levels of data management were used for example questionnaires were sorted, edited, coded, quantified, entered, analyzed and interpreted appropriately. This coded data was broken down into appropriate summary statistics and presentation.
3.8 Reliability and Validity of data.
Data reliability and validity was ensured by proper categorization of the respondents and applying or assigning rightful tools or instruments that fit a particular group of respondents, having in mind the differences that exist among the respondents.
3.8 Limitations of the study
The researcher found some challenges like;
Some respondents did not co-operate to the maximum as the topic was sensitive and some officials deliberately declined to co-operate with a perception that their weaknesses may be exposed and revealed to the public.
Higher costs in form of distance coverage and questionnaire administration as the researcher had to look for respondents from different geographical locations.
Inappropriate sample size.
Time factor as the researcher had to administer questionnaires, interview and also visit the sample places while he had to attend school at the same time.

CHAPTER FOUR
PRESENTATION AND DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS
4.1 Introduction
This study investigated the government procurement processes of Mbale Municipal Local Government Council in order to establish if its weakness is the cause of ineffective service delivery. This was in light of the persistent inefficient service delivery by government despite measures taken to improve it. The data collected was analyzed using SPSS. This chapter presents the results of the analyses.
4.2 Demographic results
4.2.1 Table I
Gender

Frequency Percent
Valid Male 57 64.0 Female 32 36.0 Total 89 100.0
Source: Primary data.
From Table i, most of the respondents (64%) are male while 36% are female.
4.2.2 Table ii Age Bracket Frequency Percent
Valid 18-29 27 30.3 30-39 28 31.5 40-49 24 27.0 50 and above 10 11.2 Total 89 100.0
Source: Primary data.
From Table ii, majority of the respondents (31.5%) ranged from 30 to 39 years in age, 30.3% were from 18 to 29 years, 27% were from 40 to 49 years and 11.2% were 50 years and above.
4.2.3 Table iii
Marital status Frequency Percent
Valid Single 38 42.7 Married 40 44.9 Separated 5 5.6 Widowed 6 6.7 Total 89 100.0

Source: Primary data.
Table iii shows that 40(44.9%) of the respondents are married, 38 (42.7%) are single, 6(6.7%) are widowed and 5 (5.6%) are separated.
4.2.4 Table iv
Level of Education Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent
Valid Below diploma 6 6.7 6.7 6.7 Diploma 27 30.3 30.3 37.1 Degree 46 51.7 51.7 88.8 Masters and above 10 11.2 11.2 100.0 Total 89 100.0 100.0
Source: Primary data.
From Table iv above, 46 (51.7%) of the respondents have attained a degree, 27 (30.3%) have diplomas, 10 (11.2%) have atleast a masters while 6 (6.7%) have not reached diploma level.

4.3 Procurement Strategy and Service delivery
The first objective of this study was to assess the extent to which Procurement Strategy affects service delivery. To achieve this objective, the respondents were asked to react to several questions intended to describe the conditions of Procurement strategies in Mbale Municipality.

The results are summarized in the tables below.
4.3.1 Table 1
The current local procurement strategies ensure improved service delivery. Frequency Percent
Valid Strongly agree 2 2.2 Agree 17 19.1 Disagree 42 47.2 Strongly disagree 28 31.5 Total 89 100.0
Source: Primary data.
From Table 1, most of the respondents (47.2%) disagreed with the claim that the current local procurement strategies ensure improved service delivery, 31.5% strongly disagreed with it. 19.1% agreed with the idea that the current local procurement strategies ensure improved service delivery while 2.2% strongly agreed with it.
4.3.2 Table 2
How is the engagement of the community local leaders and members in procurement planning and decision making process by the local government? Frequency Percent
Valid Very good 8 9.0 Good 17 19.1 Fair 33 37.1 Poor 31 34.8 Total 89 100.0

Source: Primary data.
From Table 2, the highest portion of the respondents (34.8%) said the engagement of the community local leaders and members in the procurement planning and decision making process by the local government was poor, 37.1% said it was fair. 19.1% said it was good while 9.0% said it was very good.
4.3.3 Table 3
The major factors limiting the drawing of effective procurement strategies is: Frequency Percent
Valid Corruption 18 20.2 Poor documentation of clear objectives and compliance to predetermined activities 45 50.6 Unnecessary interference from superiors leaders and politicians 13 14.6 Selecting of weak and incompetent personnel in procurement planning 13 14.6 Total 89 100.0
Source: Primary data.
From Table 3, majority of the respondents (50.6%) pointed out that the major factor limiting the drawing of effective procurement strategies is poor documentation of clear objectives to be achieved as well as poor execution and compliance to predetermined activities while 20.2% suggested corruption. 14.6% attributed it to unnecessary interference from superior leaders and politicians, while 14.6% pointed out selection of weak and incompetent personnel in procurement planning.
4.3.4 Table 4
Ineffective service delivery by the local government is partly due to poor procurement strategies. Frequency Percent
Valid Strongly agree 20 22.5 Agree 50 56.2 Disagree 13 14.6 Strongly disagree 6 6.7 Total 89 100.0
Source: Primary data.
Table 4 shows that of the 89 respondents, 50 (56.2%) agreed, 20 (22.5%) strongly agreed, 13 (14.6%) disagreed and 6 (6.7%) strongly disagreed with the idea that ineffective service delivery by the local government is partly due to poor procurement strategies.

4.3.5 Table 5
Do the current procurement strategies help to attract the strongest field of contractors to offer services? Frequency Percent
Valid Yes 38 42.7 No 51 57.3 Total 89 100.0
Source: Primary data.
From Table 5, most of the respondents (57.3%) do not concur with the idea that the current procurement strategies help to attract the strongest field of contractors while 38 (42.7%) agree with the idea.

4.3.6 Table 6
The major factors limiting the drawing of effective procurement strategies is * Ineffective service delivery by the local government is partly due to poor procurement strategies. Ineffective service delivery by the local government is partly due to poor procurement strategies. Total Strongly agree Agree Disagree Strongly disagree
The major factors limiting the drawing of effective procurement strategies is: Count

Corruption

4

9

2

3

18 Poor documentation of clear objectives compliance to predetermined activities 9 27 6 3 45 Unnecessary interference from superiors leaders and politicians 3 8 2 0 13 Selecting of weak and incompetent personnel in procurement planning 4 6 3 0 13
Total 20 50 13 6 89
Source: Primary data.
From Table 6, of the 18 respondents who said corruption was the major factor limiting the drawing of effective procurement strategies, 4 strongly agreed with the idea that ineffective service delivery by the local government is partly due to poor procurement strategies, 9 agreed with this claim, 2 disagreed while 3 strongly disagreed with it. Of the 45 respondents who suggested that Poor documentation of clear objectives compliance to predetermined activities was the major factor limiting the drawing of effective procurement strategies, 9 strongly agreed with the idea that ineffective service delivery by the local government is partly due to poor procurement strategies, 27 agreed with this claim, 6 disagreed while 3 strongly disagreed with it. Of the 13 respondents who said unnecessary interference from superiors leaders and politicians was the major factor limiting the drawing of effective procurement strategies, 3 strongly agreed with the idea that ineffective service delivery by the local government is partly due to poor procurement strategies, 8 agreed with this claim and 2 disagreed with it. Of the 13 respondents who said Selecting of weak and incompetent personnel in procurement planning was the major factor limiting the drawing of effective procurement strategies, 4 strongly agreed with the idea that ineffective service delivery by the local government is partly due to poor procurement strategies, 3 agreed with this claim and 2 disagreed with it.
From all the above results, there is an idea that there is a relationship between procurement strategy and service delivery. Procurement strategy must therefore be taken into consideration while planning a procurement process to improve service delivery.
This is in line with the research undertaken by Kukkiriza (2007) which found that monitoring and evaluation is not taken seriously by local governments and therefore the same mistakes are repeated continuously because local governments do not monitor the planning process from which they would have documented the challenges faced in order to improve on their development plan in the next planning cycle. Kukkiriza (2007) shows that monitoring and accounting for activities and expenditures was inefficient – and that most local governments failed to comply with the requirements for timely reporting. She also expresses that surveys (by government) of tracking expenditure revealed that very little of the allocated budgets were reaching the intended beneficiaries.
It was noted that poor record keeping and documentation, incomplete procurement files (information) and limited clear specifications are some of the leading factors limiting effective procurement strategies.
This is partly supported by work published by New Vision which stressed that Procurements are sometimes broken down into many unnecessary small departments which may also affect service delivery as many funds are spent through these various units. According to the New Vision (2013), the Auditor General, John Muwanga warned accounting officers against splitting big procurements in order to seek gains for themselves. He said, “There is a problem with record keeping characterized by false documentation and issuing of statements” which he described as an area prone to procurement corruption.
The current senior planner of Mbale Municipality Local Government Council stressed out litigation, poor documentation and record keeping, and limited cooperation from community members as factors limiting effective procurement strategies and execution of respective procurement activities.
4.4. Supplier Evaluation and Selection and service delivery.
The second objective of the study was to assess the extent to which Supplier Evaluation and Selection affects service delivery. To achieve this objective, the respondents were asked to react to various questions intended to describe the conditions of Supplier Evaluation and Selection in Mbale Municipality.
The results are summarized under the tables below.
4.4.1 Table 7
The contracts committee is often influenced to award contracts to not necessarily the best suppliers. Frequency Percent
Valid Strongly agree 12 13.5 Agree 29 32.6 Disagree 41 46.1 Strongly disagree 7 7.9 Total 89 100.0
Source: Primary data.
From Table 7, of the 89 respondents, 41 (46.1%) disagreed with the idea that the contracts committee is often influenced to award contracts to not necessarily the best suppliers while 29 (32.6%) agreed, 12 (13.5%) strongly agreed and 7 (7.9%) strongly disagreed with the idea.

4.4.2 Table 8
The major factor limiting the Technical Evaluation Committee from effective and transparent execution of their duties is; Frequency Percent
Valid Selecting of weak and incompetent Technical Evaluation Committee 14 15.7 Favoritism 19 21.3 Influence from more superior leaders 35 39.3 Bribery 21 23.6 Total 89 100.0
Source: Primary data.
From Table 8, the greatest proportion of the respondents (39.3%) pointed out influence from more superior leaders as the major factor limiting the Technical Evaluation Committee from effective and transparent execution of their duties, 23.6% pointed out bribery, 21.3% stressed out favoritism and 15.7% pointed out selection of weak and incompetent Technical Evaluation Committee as the major factor.

4.4.3 Table 9
Ineffective service delivery by the local government is partly due to inefficiencies in the supplier evaluation and selection. Frequency Percent
Valid Strongly agree 14 15.7 Agree 42 47.2 Disagree 21 23.6 Strongly disagree 12 13.5 Total 89 100.0
Source: Primary data.
From Table 9, the information reports that 42 (47.2%) of the respondents agreed that ineffective service delivery by the local government is partly due to inefficiencies in the supplier evaluation and selection, 21(23.6%) disagreed, 14 (15.7%) strongly agreed and 12 (13.5%) strongly disagreed with this idea.
4.4.4 Table 10
How is the performance of the Technical Evaluation Committee in the selection and evaluation stage of procurement in the local government? Frequency Percent
Valid Very good 2 2.2 Good 18 20.2 Fair 41 46.1 Poor 28 31.5 Total 89 100.0
Source: Primary data.
From Table 10, the above information reveals that 41 (46.1%) of the respondents said the performance of the Technical Evaluation Committee in the selection and evaluation stage of procurement in the local government is fair, 28 (31.5%) said it is poor, 18 (20.2%) said it is good and 2 (2.2%) said it is very good.

4.4.5 Table 11
The major factor limiting the Technical Evaluation Committee fro effective and transparent execution of their duties is; * Ineffective service delivery by the local government is partly due to inefficiencies in the supplier evaluation and selection. Ineffective service delivery by the local government is partly due to inefficiencies in the supplier evaluation and selection. Total Strongly agree Agree Disagree Strongly disagree
The major factor limiting the Technical Evaluation Committee from effective and transparent execution of their duties is; Count

Selecting of weak and incompetent Technical Evaluation Committee 1 9 2 2 14 Favoritism 2 8 4 5 19 Influence from more superior leaders 7 16 9 3 35 Bribery 4 9 6 2 21
Total 14 42 21 12 89
Source: Primary data.
From Table 11, of the 14 respondents who said Selecting of weak and incompetent Technical Evaluation Committee is the major factor limiting the Technical Evaluation Committee from effective and transparent execution of their duties, 1 strongly agreed with the statement that ineffective service delivery by the local government is partly due to inefficiencies in the supplier evaluation and selection, 9 agreed with it, 2 disagreed with it while 2 strongly disagreed with this idea. Of the 19 respondents who said favoritism is the major factor limiting the Technical Evaluation Committee from effective and transparent execution of their duties, 2 strongly agreed with the statement that ineffective service delivery by the local government is partly due to inefficiencies in the supplier evaluation and selection, 8 agreed with it, 4 disagreed with it while 5 strongly disagreed with this idea. Of the 35 respondents who said influence from more superior leaders is the major factor limiting the Technical Evaluation Committee from effective and transparent execution of their duties, 7 strongly agreed with the statement that ineffective service delivery by the local government is partly due to inefficiencies in the supplier evaluation and selection, 16 agreed with it, 9 disagreed with it while 3 strongly disagreed with this idea. Of the 21 respondents who suggested that bribery is the major factor limiting the Technical Evaluation Committee from effective and transparent execution of their duties, 4 strongly agreed with the statement that ineffective service delivery by the local government is partly due to inefficiencies in the supplier evaluation and selection, 9 agreed with it, 6 disagreed with it while 2 strongly disagreed with this idea.
From all the above results, there is an idea that there is a relationship between supplier evaluation and selection, and service delivery. Supplier evaluation and selection must therefore be taken into consideration while planning a procurement process to improve service delivery.
This is in line with the research undertaken by Kukkiriza (2007) which stresses that some lower level councils have failed to meet the minimum performance requirement set by the Ministry of Local Government as a result of less commitment to work where local politicians have, in some cases deviated from planned guidelines or programs. Research undertaken by Hunja (2003) revealed that the most challenging obstacles to public procurement reforms include loose or opaque rules that are also poorly enforced, protection of vested interests, and procurement used as a basis for rewarding political supporters. Hunja (2003) says that efforts are taken by many developing countries to institute and implement changes as a result of pressure from donors but all these are frustrated by a clique of politicians or civil servants with vested interests in maintaining the status quo. He cites weak or inconsistent enforcement of new legislation, lack of an effective procurement process, complexity of substantive issues involved and poor management of the function. According to Nsamba (2007), tender boards and the tendering process are hardly transparent resulting into bribery, corruption and poor service delivery. This is because through the process of evaluating and selecting bidders, unqualified firms are selected and given contracts if they are known by the local councils and tender boards; with less consideration of their capacities, eligibility, and responsiveness. He says that tender boards collude with councilors to award projects to themselves or unqualified companies instead of the best bidder. This leads to inefficient and ineffective service delivery
According to the current assistant procurement officer of Mbale Municipal Local Government Council, Mr. Mafabi Ali, political influence, prior notification of intended bidders and limited clear specifications are the major barriers of effective execution of duties by the Technical Evaluation Committee.
4.5 Award of contract and Service delivery.
The third objective of the study was to assess the extent to which Award of contract affects service delivery. To achieve this objective, the respondents were asked to react to a few questions intended to describe the conditions of award of contracts in Mbale Municipality.
The results obtained are summarized in the tables below.
4.5.1 Table 12
Award of contract in the Local Government is appropriate and efficient. Frequency Percent
Valid Strongly agree 4 4.5 Agree 21 23.6 Disagree 44 49.4 Strongly disagree 20 22.5 Total 89 100.0
Source: Primary data.
From Table 12, most of the respondents (49.4%) disagreed with the suggestion that the award of contracts in the local government is appropriate and efficient while 23.6% agreed with it. 22.5% strongly disagreed with the idea that the award of contracts in the local government is appropriate and efficient while 4.5% strongly agreed with this suggestion.
4.5.2 Table 13
The major barrier to the contract awarding committee in their effective operation is; Frequency Percent
Valid Inadequate funding of the contracts committee 8 9.0 Political influence 36 40.4 Incompetent contract awarding committee 18 20.2 Bribery 27 30.3 Total 89 100.0
Source: Primary data.
From Table 13, majority of the respondents (40.4%) pointed out political influence as the major barrier to the contract awarding committee in their effective operation, 30.3% pointed out bribery, 20.2% pointed out an incompetent contract awarding committee and 9% put it on the inadequate funding of the contracts committee.
4.5.3 Table 14
Are there cases where the contracts awarded are breached? Frequency Percent
Valid Yes 58 65.2 No 31 34.8 Total 89 100.0
Source: Primary data.
Table 14 shows that 58 (65.2%) of the respondents agreed that there are cases where the contracts awarded are breached and 31 (34.8%) disagreed with it.
4.5.4 Table 15
Is the current state of inefficient service delivery partly as a result of poor award of contracts in the procurement process? Frequency Percent
Valid Yes 46 51.7 No 43 48.3 Total 89 100.0
Source: Primary data.
Table 15 reveals that 46 (51.7%) of the respondents agreed with the suggestion that the current state of inefficient service delivery partly as a result of poor award of contracts in the procurement process while 43 (48.3%) disagreed with it.

4.5.5 Table 16
Award of contract in the Local Government is appropriate and efficient * Is the current state of inefficient service delivery partly as a result of poor award of contracts in the procurement process? Is the current state of inefficient service delivery partly as a result of poor award of contracts in the procurement process? Total Yes No
Award of contract in the Local Government is appropriate and efficient. Count

Strongly agree

3

1

4 Agree 8 13 21 Disagree 24 20 44 Strongly disagree 11 9 20
Total 46 43 89
Source: Primary data.
From Table 16, of the 4 respondents who strongly agreed that award of contract in the Local Government is appropriate and efficient, 3 agreed that the current state of inefficient service delivery is partly as a result of poor award of contracts in the procurement process while 1 respondent disagreed with this idea. Of the 21 respondents who agreed that award of contract in the Local Government is appropriate and efficient, 8 agreed that the current state of inefficient service delivery is partly as a result of poor award of contracts in the procurement process while 13 respondent disagreed with this idea. Of the 44 respondents who disagreed with the suggestion that award of contract in the Local Government is appropriate and efficient, 24 agreed that the current state of inefficient service delivery is partly as a result of poor award of contracts in the procurement process while 20 respondent disagreed with this idea. Of the 20 respondents who strongly disagreed with the idea that award of contract in the Local Government is appropriate and efficient, 11 agreed that the current state of inefficient service delivery is partly as a result of poor award of contracts in the procurement process while 9 respondent disagreed with this suggestion.
From all the above results, there is a suggestion that there is a relationship between award of contract and service delivery. Award of contact must therefore be taken into consideration while planning a procurement process to improve service delivery.
This is in line with the research undertaken by Bwegyeme (2011) which indicated that the ineffectiveness and inefficiency is due to corruption in local governments citing that award of contract is biased where contracts are given to councilors, Tender Board officials’ relatives, tender board members, civil servants without considering the consequences which may be faced. Research undertaken by Nsamba (2007) reveals that there is manipulation of tender boards to intimidate technical staff that would have been whistle-blowers to effect transparency. This leads to the award of the contract to wrong and inefficient suppliers who may in turn deliver poor services resulting from less consideration of supplier capacities, eligibility and responsiveness. According to the Uganda Country Self-Assessment report and Program of Action (2007), some government officials are still sympathetic to or in some instances glorify the corrupt hailing them as hard-working. According to Mbabazi, Karuhanga, and Mukokoma (2009), the responsible top Local Government officials may use procurement as a basis for rewarding political supporters and sometimes to finance political parties. This makes some individuals to gain at the expense of others leading to ineffective service delivery. Research undertaken by Nsamba (2007) reveals that tender boards and the tendering process are hardly transparent resulting into bribery, corruption and poor service delivery. This is because through the process of evaluating and selecting bidders, unqualified firms are selected and given contracts if they are known by the local councils and tender boards; with less consideration of their capacities, eligibility, and responsiveness. He says that tender boards collude with councilors to award projects to themselves or unqualified companies instead of the best bidder. This leads to inefficient and ineffective service delivery. According to the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Regulations, effective competition should be evidenced by use of the open bidding, restricted bidding or quotations and proposals procurement methods and that the procuring and disposing entity should use open bidding as the preferred method of procurement. However, the Observer (2012) reports an incident of bribery to influence the award of a contract concerning the Karuma hydro-dam project in Uganda. They stressed that the East African newspaper alleged that some members of the 12-person bid evaluation committee had accepted bribes to allow a bid by a Chinese firm to proceed to the pre-qualification stage, despite serious doubts about its ability to execute the work. In the East African, it was asserted that the prospect of Uganda slipping back to high cost thermal generation is growing as procurement for the 600MW Karuma Hydropower station continues to be dogged by allegations of impropriety.
Mr. Watsomu Moses, the current Mbale municipality senior planner pointed out limited funding to the contracts committee as one of the factors affecting award of contracts citing that this factor leads to corruption and acceptance of bribes.

CHAPTER FIVE
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
5.1 Introduction
This chapter constitutes of the conclusions and recommendations of the study. It also includes areas of further research as referred by the researcher.
5.2 Conclusion
This study investigated the Impact of government Procurement process on effective service delivery in Uganda with Mbale Municipal Local Government Council as the case study. This was in light of the persistent inefficient service delivery by government despite measures taken to improve it.
The first study objective specifically sought to assess the extent to which Procurement strategy affects service delivery. The study established that poor documentation and record keeping coupled with limited compliance to the accomplishment of predetermined activities are the main factors that influence procurement strategies.
The second study objective specifically sought to assess the extent to which Supplier Evaluation and Selection affects service delivery. The study established that unnecessary political influence and inadequate funding are the main factors that influence supplier evaluation and selection.
The third study objective specifically sought to assess the extent to which award of contract affects service delivery. The study established that unnecessary political influence, inadequate funding, corruption and bribery are the main factors that influence award of contracts.
This means that sound procurement strategies, supplier evaluation and selection, and award of contracts ensure better services delivered in education, health and infrastructure.
5.2 Recommendations
The researcher has established in this report that procurement strategy, supplier evaluation and selection, and award of contract have a relationship with service delivery. The study has also shown that unnecessary political influence, poor documentation, inadequate funding, corruption and bribery are the main factors that influence procurement processes whereby sound procurement strategies, supplier evaluation and selection, and award of contracts ensure better services delivered in education, health and infrastructure. It is against this background that the recommendations below are made.
Basing generalizations on the findings of this study, the researcher recommends that;
There should be more emphasis on clear documentation of all specific activities in the procurement process and a follow up should be put in place to ensure accomplishments of objectives.
More strict measures should be put in place to check on political influence in the procurement processes.
There should be adequate funding of members on the contracts committee to check on cases of corruption and bribery.
More research on Induction and Integration as a stage of the procurement process should also be undertaken.
More research should also be undertaken on the clear specifications involved in the procurement process.

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APPENDICES
Appendix I: Questionnaire Number
I am Wandulu Kosea, a student of Uganda Martyrs University, Nkozi pursuing a degree of Bachelor of Science in Economics and Statistics. This research aims at obtaining information about the “Impact of government Procurement Process on effective service delivery in Uganda” – a case study of Mbale Municipal Local Council Government. Any information provided and obtained in this research will be used for academic purposes only and will be held with great confidentiality.
Your cooperation in providing information in this case is highly appreciated.
Select one option that you feel is appropriate and fill in the space provided where necessary.
SECTION A: BACKGROUND AND BACKGROUND INFORMATION.
A1. Gender a) Male b) Female
A2. Age bracket
a) 18 -29 b) 30-39 c) 40-49 d) 50 and above
A3. Marital status
a) Single b) Married c) Separated d) Widowed
A4. Level of Education
a) Below Diploma b) Diploma
c) Degree d) Masters and above SECTION B: PROCUREMENT STRATEGY AND SERVICE DELIVERY
B1. The current local procurement strategies ensure improved service delivery.
a) Strongly agree
b) Agree
c) Disagree
d) Strongly disagree
B2. How is the engagement of the community local leaders and members in the procurement planning and decision making process by the local government?
a) Very good
b) Good
c) Fair
d) Poor
B3. The major factor limiting the drawing of effective procurement strategies is;
a) Corruption
b) Poor documentation of clear objectives compliance to predetermined activities
c) Unnecessary interference from superior leaders
d) Selecting of weak and incompetent personnel in procurement planning
B4. Ineffective service delivery by the local government is partly due to poor procurement strategies.
a) Strongly agree
b) Agree
c) Disagree
d) Strongly disagree
B5. Do the current procurement strategies help to attract the strongest field of contractors to offer services?
a) Yes
b) No
B6. If no, please list some reasons why the local government procurement strategies do not attract the strongest field of contractors for services?
i. …………………………………………………………………………………….... ii. ……………………………………………………………………………………… iii. ……………………………………………………………………………………… iv. ………………………………………………………………………………………
SECTION C: SUPPLIER EVALUATION AND SELECTION, AND SERVICE DELIVERY
C1. The contracts committee is often influenced to award contracts to not necessarily the best suppliers.
a) Strongly agree
b) Agree
c) Disagree
d) Strongly disagree
C2. The major factor limiting the Technical Evaluation Committee from effective and transparent execution of their duties is;
a) Selecting of weak and incompetent Technical Evaluation Committee
b) Favoritism
c) Influence from more superior leaders
d) Bribery
C3. Ineffective service delivery by the local government is partly due to inefficiencies in the supplier evaluation and selection.
a) Strongly agree
b) Agree
c) Disagree
d) Strongly disagree

C4. How is the performance of the Technical Evaluation Committee in the supplier evaluation and selection stage of procurement in the local government?
a) Very good b) Good
b) Fair c) Poor
C5. Please list some other challenges facing the Technical Evaluation Committee in the supplier evaluation and selection stage in local governments
i. ……………………………………………………………………………………………… ii. ……………………………………………………………………………………………… iii. …………………………………………………………………………………………
SECTION D: AWARD OF CONTRACT AND SERVICE DELIVERY
D1. Award of contract in the Local Government is appropriate and efficient.
a) Strongly agree b) Agree
b) c) Disagree d) Strongly disagree
D2. The major barrier to the contact awarding committee from their effective operation is;
a) Inadequate funds
b) Political influence
c) Incompetent contract awarding committee
d) Bribery
D3. Are there cases where the contracts awarded are breached?
a) Yes
b) No
D4. Is the current state of inefficient service delivery partly as a result of poor award of contracts in the procurement process?
a) Yes b)No
D5. Please give some reasons why you think awarded contracts have often resulted in poor service delivery.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Thank you

Name of respondent (Optional)…………………………………………………………………
Contact Information (Optional)………………………………………………………………….

Appendix II: Interview Guide For Local Government Officials Retired Civil Servants.
1. When and how is the engagement of the community local leaders and members in the procurement planning and decision making process?
2. Please give some of the major factors that limit the drawing of effective procurement strategies.
3. What are some of the challenges faced during the execution of the various activities drawn in the procurement plan?
4. What could be the major challenges limiting the Technical Evaluation Committee from effective execution of its duties?
5. Are there occasions where the contracts awarded by the local government are breached by suppliers? If yes, what are some of the factors that lead to this act?
6. Are there instances where contracts are not awarded to the best suppliers? If yes, what are some of the factors that lead to this?