Effect of Supplier Appraisal on Performance of Construction Projects of Counties in Lake Region Economic Bloc, Kenya

Abstract

Procurement Laws and Regulations 2015 are a yard stick that directs how buying of goods, services, and works by governments and state-owned businesses should be conducted (Thiankolu, 2019). However, there exists an absence of compliance to these laws as envisaged by its framers which results to bias and uncompetitive bidding, evaluation and award of contracts process something that compromises the effectiveness of the project's accomplishment (Kagume & Wamalwa, 2018). The primary objective relating to this research entailed investigating the effect of supplier appraisal on performance of construction projects of counties in Lake Region Economic Bloc, Kenya. The study adopted a descriptive research design with stratified random sampling technique being applied to select a sample of 342 respondents from a total population of 2346 county officials that include finance and procurement officers. A survey instrument was utilized for gathering data, using questions that were both open and closed-ended. The survey instrument was piloted in Marsabit County. It was conducted to ensure that the instrument is both valid and reliable. SPSS was used to perform analysis of data. Supplier appraisal was established to have a positive and significant correlation on the performance of counties in Lake Region Economic Bloc with a co-efficient of correlation R value of 0.816 and P<0.05. Supplier appraisal with a coefficient of determination (R2=0.700, P<0.05) could account for 70% of variation in the performance of construction projects if other factors were to be held constant. Specifically, when Supplier appraisal increases by a single unit, there will be a subsequent increase in performance of construction projects by 0.885 units (β1=0.885, P<0.05). This suggests a positive and strong correlation between supplier appraisal and performance of construction projects and thus the study suggests that evaluating suppliers using technical, financial, and legal criteria might help construction projects succeed in Kenya's Lake Region Economic Bloc.