The influence of legislation, institutional capacity and risk management and monitoring on malpractice incidences in local government authorities procurement undertakings

Abstract

In light of the growing reports on malpractice incidences in public procurement, especially for local government authorities, this study investigated the influence of procurement legislation, institutional capacity, and risk management on the occurrence of malpractices in public procurement. The study was conducted at Kasulu District Council due to the council being one of the procuring entities reported to have procurement malpractices. The study used an explanatory design to determine the effect of legislation, institutional capacity, and risk management on the occurrence of malpractice incidences. Data was collected by means of questionnaires and key informant interviews, of which 112 questionnaires and 12 interviews were conducted. Data was collected by means of simple random sampling and purposive sampling. The results show that the legal and regulatory framework [p = 0.006] and risk management [p = 0.001] were found to significantly influence the prevalence of malpractice. Institutional capacity [p = 0.145] was found to be insignificantly influencing the prevalence of malpractices. Henceforth, the study recommends that the correct application of legislative frameworks and risk management be emphasized to ensure that procurement malpractices are driven out of public procurement. Further, training is considered important to both practitioners and non-practitioners to understand the pervasiveness of legislative frameworks and the importance of risk management to eradicate procurement malpractices.