Status of the procurement function in Rwanda public organizations

Abstract

Public procurement has become more strategic than a clerical activity in recent times. The perception some people have is that procurement departments are reactive rather than proactive and this leads many organizations to pay little or no attention to planning, execution and monitoring of their procurement process and procedures. Inadequate strategic thought in procurement actions often result in total failure of the whole procurement system which eventually leads to undue delays in delivery, shortages and or excess stocks, poor quality products, and other associated problems. When this happens, procurement is then perceived as none performing, cumbersome and cost consuming activity of the organization. The main objective of the study was to find out the extent to which the procurement function is regarded as a strategic function in Rwanda’s Public Organizations; Recognition of the function was measured in terms of position of the procurement unit within the organizational structure, number of staff within the unit vis-à-vis procurement volume and spends, quality of staff, adequacy of office space and equipment and compensation of staff vis-à-vis staff of other departments. Accordingly, data on these measures was collected from 21 public organizations. From this perspective, we find that in Rwanda procured services, goods and works represent a large percentage in a total expenditure. Despite Government instructions requiring procurement to report to the highest level in the organization, this research revealed that only 33% report to where they are supposed to report to, meaning that, majority of procurement units are still working under others departments, while at the same time, they are supposed to handle strategic activities, in addition, 76% of reviewed cases showed that procurement units are staffed with only one staff, while, the number of contracts processed annually in a number of institutions reach between 101 and 200, this implies large workload to the procurement units which are already under staffed; in terms of facilities and physical assets, the majority of reviewed cases (62%), perceive office space as a key challenge, while, (67%) of reviewed cases disagreed with the statement that the procurement unit has an operating budget; moreover, 72% of reviewed cases disagreed with the statement that the procurement unit has adequate space to keep procurement files.