Role of Procurement Management on the Performance of Constituencies’ Development Fund Projects in Kenya: A Case Study of Kiambu County

Abstract

In this paper, we present results of a study which examined the effects of various tools of procurement management on the performance of Constituencies Development Fund projects in the 12 Constituencies in Kiambu County in Kenya. The tools evaluated included Sustainable purchasing, Information and communication Technology, Contract process and Supplier relationship. A regression model was used to test the relationship. Ninety six out of 720 employees of Constituency Devleopment Funds' offices from the 12 constituencies of Kiambu County were tested using questionnaires. The results showed that there exists, on a linkerd scale of 1-5, a relationship between the tools and project performance.The results of the analysis show that performance on procurement management techniques are related to the project performance by various coefficient values and a constant of 3.974, with an error term of 0.2325. The model, however, does not closely represent the real points of the data, with a coefficient of determination of 0.098. Keywords - Information and communication Technology, Contract process, Procurement management, Project Performance, Supplier relationship, Sustainable purchasing. I. Introduction Procurement forms the critical link between the government expenditure management and the attainment of the social and objective goals. Poor procurement planning, outdated policies and regulations and poor contract administration lead to inefficient procurement process, hence distorting resource allocation (1). The inefficiencies are manifested through unnecessary costs, project delays, poor service delivery and failed implementation of government plans (2). Constituencies Development Fund (CDF) came to exist through the Constituencies Development Fund Act; 2003. The primary objective of the CDF was to address poverty at grassroots level. The CDF carries out different projects across the country in order to achieve its objective. Performance of Procurement processes is part of the elements that determine the success and viability of the CDF projects (3). The role of the Performance on Procurement Management in the Constituencies Development Fund projects has been in public limelight, with stakeholders seeking to understand how this function of management can be useful in project performances (4). Studies have been carried out before, in different jurisdictions, attempting to understand various aspects of supply chain management function in projects. One such a study was carried out to analyze the purchasing process for green consumers in relation to consumer technology products in the UK. Data were collected from 81 self-declared green consumers through in depth interviews on recent purchases of technology products. A green consumer purchasing model and success criteria for closing the gap between green consumers' values and their behavior were developed. The paper concluded that incentives and single issue labels (like the current energy rating label) would help consumers concentrate their limited efforts. More fundamentally, being green needs time and space in people's lives; however, this is not available in an increasingly busy lifestyles (5). Another study was carried out to explore the relationships between the formal versus informal nature of opportunism and the formal versus informal nature of contractual governance. The study used a unique data set of 102 buyers-supplier disputes to explore in depth the different types of opportunism; that is, strong form versus weak form opportunism and different types of contracting mechanisms; that is, the controlling and coordinating functions of formal contracts and the cooperative and competitive sides of relational contracts. From the detailed empirical analysis, there was found a distinct relationship between the different contracting mechanisms, the different types of opportunism, and the level of legal fees necessary to deal with the dispute (6). An in-depth longitudinal study of the alliance contracting process in the animated film industry was carried out. The study analyzed an organizational learning perspective on the contracting process. First, the study's findings suggest that during the contracting process, firms can learn about the way to deal with the contracting process, about themselves and their partner, and about the transaction features. Second, the case