Adoption Of E-Procurement Technology In Uganda: Migration From The Manual Public Procurement Systems To The Internet

Abstract

Many public sector entities in Uganda face the challenge of delivering goods and services to consumers due to procurement constraints. The increased losses in the public procurement processes have been attributed to low adoption level of e-procurement as the ordinary manual procurement process has been blamed to be time consuming and has consistently scored low on achievement of value for money and transparency. Most Public Procuring and Disposing Entities (PDE’s) do not know how to adopt electronic procurement systems due to lack of understanding of procurement process automation. Yet, with the increased level of technology and automation, e-procurement is a necessary innovation that can increase level of efficiency and effectiveness of PDE’s. This study examines the e-procurement practices for adoption, the willingness and readiness to adopt e-procurement and investigates the challenges to the adoption of e-procurement practices in Uganda’s PDE’s. A quantitative and cross sectional survey was conducted using simple random sampling to select respondents from whom data was collected using self-administered questionnaires. The research enhances our understanding of e-procurement systems as the best practice technique in modern e-procurement system, an area which has been given less attention. Practical contributions are also discussed.