Effect of Institutional Status on Level of Compliance with Public Procurement Regulations in Public Tertiary Institutions in Southwest Nigeria

Abstract

Forty-four public tertiary institutions (PTEIs) in Southwest, Nigeria was used to investigate the level of compliance with the Public Procurement Act, 2007 among the institutions. The opinions of Procurement Officers in the institutions were sampled on the compliance level in all the Provisions of the Act applicable to the procurement of construction projects using a structured questionnaire (Cronbach alpha, 0.70-0.91). Data obtained were subjected to descriptive statistics and ANOVA. The results showed that compliance was generally low averaging 53.46%, 54.10% and 48.41% for Universities, Polytechnics/Colleges of Technology and Colleges of Education, respectively (P< 0.05). All the PTEIs recorded non-compliance with the Provision of the Act on unrestricted accessibility of unclassified procurement records. Also, compliance was very low in several provisions of the Act, which negates the principle of transparency, integrity, openness, elimination of corruption and ensuring world standards in public procurement in Nigeria. The low compliance was suggestive of sharp practices in the procurement process in the institutions. Therefore, general compliance with the provision of unrestricted access to the institutions’ unclassified procurement records for public scrutiny was recommended. Furthermore, full compliance with the Act and in particular those provisions where they recorded very low compliance by all the PTEIs was recommended.