Weak Procurement Practices and the Challenges of Service Delivery in South Africa

Abstract

Procurement is a crucial institutional process and measure for the functioning of government, regarding service delivery. As such, it is important that such a process is characterised by ethical standards to ensure that service delivery is not compromised and undermined. However, despite the establishment of oversight mechanisms to monitor irregular, wasteful and unauthorised expenditure, corruption in procurement remains a challenge. One of the major problems is non-compliance with the requisite legislative frameworks. Consequently, weak procurement practices and corruption have a significant impact in the attainment of good governance. Although procurement plays a major and strategic role in the acquisition of goods and services, it is one of government’s activities that is most vulnerable to waste, fraud and corruption. Methodologically, desktop research was used with content analysis of the various primary and secondary resource material. The chapter concludes that the effect of corruption in procurement has seriously constrained sustainable economic development and seriously affected service delivery in South Africa. The chapter therefore recommends that there should be consequences for non-compliance and misuse of public resources and institutional entities must ensure full compliance with procurement legislation and processes.