Contract management and project performance of non-governmental organizations in Uganda: A case of Self Help Africa

Abstract

Contract management is an important activity in public procurement, especially on executing projects fostering community development while aiming at value for money. The main objective of the study was to examine how contract management affected project performance in SHA. The study was guided by the following specific objectives; to examine the relationship between contract delivery management and project performance of Self Help Africa; to determine the relationship between contract relationship management on project performance of Self Help Africa; and to explore the relationship between contract administration and monitoring and project performance of Self Help Africa. A correlational survey design was used in this study. Staff and top management of SHA constituted the study respondents. To come up with a representative sample, three sampling techniques were used. These are: stratified random sampling, simple random sampling and purposive sampling techniques. Data were collected using questionnaires and interviews guides. The data were analyzed using mean and standard deviation. Pearson Correlation Coefficient was used to test the effect of the constructs of contract management on project performance while the hypotheses were tested using regression analysis. The study found out a positive significant relationship between contract delivery management and project performance (r= 0.411*, p=.0.000<0.05) with contract delivery management predicting a 31.2% variation in project performance. Contract relationship management had a strong positive relationship with project performance (r=0.621*, p=0.000<0.05) with a 37.8% predicted variation in project performance while contract administration and monitoring had a positive significant effect on project performance (r= 0.201* p=0.000<0.05) and predicted a 17.8% variation in the project performance. The most influential of the three investigated factors were contract relationship management and delivery management and contract administration and monitoring in that pecking order. Basing on findings of the study, it was concluded contracts delivery management had a moderate positive effect on project performance, contracts relationship management had a strong positive effect on performance of projects while contracts monitoring and administration had weak positive relationship with project performance. The study recommended the need for deploying of more staff in the procurement department to reduce on work overloads, need for more supervision and monitoring of contracted projects, need for training of staff to equip them with modest skills of handling contracts and need for evolving a contracts administration unit in the procurement department to streamline the contract managementactivities