Procurement management and road construction project performance in Uganda national roads authority

Abstract

This study was focused on examining the effect of procurement management on road construction projects perfomance in Uganda National Roads Authority. The study was premised on the assumption that the prevalent poor performance of the road construction projects in Uganda National Roads Authority could be explained by three dimensions of procurement management namely: procurement planning, procurement organization and procurement control. The study adopted a cross sectional case study design, data was collected from 71 people of the following categories; UNRA Directors, Project Managers, Project/Station Engineers, Procurement Officers, Contracts Committee Members, Senior staff of Supervising Consultants and Senior Staff of the Contractors. Data was collected using questionnaires, interview guides and Documentary checklist and were analyzed using descriptive statistics and inferential statistics. The study empirically revealed that procurement management explain a total variance of 22.4% in the performance of road construction projects in Uganda National Roads Authority, with procurement planning explaining only 2.2 %, procurement organization explaining 9% and procurement control explaining 11.2 %. The study then concludes that procurement organization and control have a significant effect on the performance of the road construction projects in Uganda National Roads Authority. Although the study revealed that there was a very small effect of procurement planning on road construction project performance, it is recommended that improvement in some aspects of the procurement planning is necessary. Under procurement organisation and project performance, it is recommended that UNRA should endeavour to improve the aspects of role and obligation definition and ensure that all the players in the project implementation abide by their roles and obligations. Lastly it is recommended that that UNRA through its departments should ensure adequate designs and specifications, close supervision and monitoring as well as limiting the scope changes and adhering to contracts.