THE MEDIATING EFFECTS OF AWARENESS ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PROCUREMENT MANUAL COMPLIANCE’S BARRIERS AND COST PERFORMANCE OF CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS

Abstract

Public Procurement Manual (PPM) are the procedural guidelines for executing public procurement practices including construction procurement. Compliance with PPM among construction procurement parties has been facing serious challenges which affects the performance of construction projects especially cost aspect. This study identified fraudulent practices as the major procurement manual compliances’ barriers affecting cost performance of construction projects. The paper examines the mediating effects of awareness on procurement manual compliance’s barriers affecting cost performance. Data was collected from the procurement entities of nine selected Nigerian federal universities. A mediation analysis was performed via bias-corrected bootstrapped confidence interval approach using Process Macro package. The indirect effects obtained was positive and different from zero, and the confidence interval within which the effect occur do not include zero indicating that awareness can mitigate the effects of fraudulent practices been compliance barriers affecting cost performance of construction projects.