Description
This paper examines the skills required by public procurement professionals in a local government context in Uganda. The changing local government context has significant implications on the ideal skills required by procurement professionals.
PUBLIC PROCUREMENT SKILLS REQUIREMENT
FRAMEWORK FOR LOCAL GOVERNMENT SYSTEMS IN
UGANDA: PERCEPTIONS FROM PROFESSIONALS
Benon C. Basheka
ABSTRACT
This paper examines the skills required by public procurement
professionals in a local government context in Uganda. The changing
local government context has significant implications on the ideal
skills required by procurement professionals. The objectives of the
study were to assess the strategic, tactical, and operational skills
required by procurement professionals in Uganda’s Local
Governments. At the time of the survey, Uganda had 92 local
governments and a sample of 80 procurement officers was selected
for the study. Of the sampled professionals, 59 of them filled a 50-
item survey instrument (a response rate of 73.4%).Using factor
analysis to confirm construct and content validity, this paper
identifies a set of key skills that local government procurement staff
in Uganda need to have if they are to efficiently and effectively
manage the procurement function. The paper presents a skills
requirements framework (SRF) for procurement practitioners in local
government systems of Uganda. The results are original and
contribute to the increasing body of public procurement in
developing countries.
INTRODUCTION
Dedicated, energetic, and ethical employees are always hard
to find, and hiring individuals with special skills is even harder (Lan,
Riley& Cayer, 2005). The requirements to educate professionals and
equip them with new and higher-level skills have consequently
become urgent (Sauber et al, 2008). A skill is the ability either to
perform some specific behavioral task or the ability to perform some
specific cognitive process that is related to some particular task
(Peterson& Van Fleet, 2004). Skills required by purchasing
professional have changed due to the role shift of the purchasing
function itself. From that of a buyer to that of a professional
managing strategic long-term, complex agreement between internal
stakeholders and suppliers (Faes et al, 2001); professionals require a
complex set of managerial and technical professional skills. These
role shifts affect professionals in both developed and developing
countries. It affects procurement professionals in central and local
government systems as well as those in the public and private sector
environments.
For purchasing to be at a strategic level, professionals need
to posses a set of skills and competencies (Carr & Smeltzer, 2000).
Governments use public procurement to undertake public works,
build roads, provide health care, and provide education and public
order (Errigde & Mcllroy, 2002). The practitioners who manage this
function usually face many challenges (Thai, 2005). The challenges
differ among local and central government practitioners but there are
a number of similar challenges. For example, professionals in
purchasing and supply management have faced a challenging ethical
environment (Cooper, Farank & Kemp, 2000); and this will appear in
any sector. Of course, it may be high in government procurement
environments because of the high risks in the procurement process.
In either case, the dynamics, complexity and diversity, characteristic
of global environments have led to increasing demands on
management and leadership competencies (J okinen, 2005) demanded
of procurement professionals.
Although much has been written about the skills required of
a purchasing/ supply management professional, very little academic
research has been undertaken on this topic (Dawn, 2000).Professions
of all types are affected by globalization of markets and the
information technology revolution (Amos &Chance. 2001). The
interest in supply chain management has left much of the knowledge
on the subject residing in narrow functional silos of purchasing,
logistics, IT, and marketing. This has partly contributed to lack of
consensus on the conceptual and research methodologies of supply
chain management (Burgess, et al, 2006); including public
procurement. The general interest has been in supply chain
management, but not much attention has been paid to the purchasing
professionals who are responsible for managing and implementing
the new strategies (Humphreys, 2001).
Public procurement professionals have to strive to achieve
three competing demands (Errigde & Mcllroy, 2002) of meeting
commercial interests with key themes of value for money, economy,
efficiency and effectiveness; the regulatory interests with key themes
of competition, transparency, equality and compliance and the social
interests whose key themes include public interest, employment
concerns, social exclusion, economic development and environment
policy. In an effort to attain these demands, organizations constantly
look for employees who have skills necessary to deal with the wide
variety of tasks faced by purchasing professionals (Monczka et al,
1998). Procurement professionals in a local government context will
undoubtedly be expected to have a multiplicity of skills to manage
the critical acquisition processes.
Purchasing (procurement) professionals are no longer
responsible for non-value adding activities and paperwork processing.
They should be responsible for activities, which contribute
effectively to the performance metrics of an organization. The
modern purchasing managers must emphasize cross-functional
interaction with groups outside purchasing. The need to be flexible,
adaptive and boundary spanning are therefore important traits for
both organizations and individuals (Monczka et al.; 2004, 1998).
There has been a realization of the important contribution that
purchasing and supply management can have on firm performance
(Boyd, 1994, Cousins, Lawson, and Squire, 2006, Humphreys, 2001,
Macbeth, 1994). This realization directly influences the skills
procurement professionals require (Humphreys, 2001).
According to Guinipero, Handfield & Eltantawy, (2006)
purchasing professionals need transactional and strategic skills.
Transactional skills are required to manage transactional activities
like executing transactions with suppliers, using e-systems to obtain
standard or indirect items through catalogues, generating and
forwarding material releases and managing accounts payable.
Strategic skills are required to manage strategic activities like
strategic relationships, developing company-wide electronic systems,
developing and managing alliances and partnerships as well as
managing critical commodities. According to the authors, the top five
skills required to support the strategic role of supply managers
included-
(1) Team building skills(leadership, decision-making, influencing
and compromising)
(2) Strategic planning skills(project scoping, goal setting and
execution)
(3) Communication skills(presentation, public speaking, listening
and writing)
(4) Technical skills(web-enabled research and sourcing analysis)
and ;
(5) Broader financial skills (cost accounting and making the
business case).
In similar attempts, Kolchin & Guinipero (1993) proposed
three skill areas of business, interpersonal and technical skills
important to the procurement function. Business skills include skills
of marketing analysis, negotiating with partners, managing internal
and external relationships. They also include global sourcing
development, change management, and organizational skills.
Interpersonal skills include risk taking, written and oral
communication, conflict resolution, influence and persuasion, group
dynamics, leadership, problem solving, interpersonal and cultural
awareness. Technical skills include cost analysis, product knowledge,
computer literacy, total quality management and government
legislation. In similar attempt, Murphy (1995) identified four skills
important for purchasers, which included- negotiation, management,
computer literacy and mathematics. In an interview research, Carr &
Smeltzer (2000) identify 35 purchasing skills, which were divided
into three categories of technical, behavior and skill techniques.
Public Procurement is now a global discipline. Those
managing the function at both local and central government levels are
required to be global leaders or ‘World-Class’ professionals. Global
leaders have desired mental characteristics which J okinen (2005)
suggests to include optimism, self-regulation, social judgment skills,
empathy, motivation to work in an international environment,
cognitive skills, as well as acceptance of complexity and its
contradictions. The behavioral skills for global leaders include social
skills, networking skills, and knowledge. Purchasing management
has a number of resources available to meet its objectives and must
work continuously towards improved utilization of these resources.
Globalization has been associated with a major revolution in
information and communication technology. There is need for greater
reliance on the use of information and on web-based information
technology to support purchasing and supply management decision-
making (Guinipero, Handfield & Eltantawy, 2006). Information and
communication technology will continue to play a key role in
contemporary organizations (Eriksson-Zetterquist, et al; 2009).
Writing from a financial perspective, Storer and Rajang
(2002) observed that the structural changes that had affected
organizations increased the importance of technical skills, risk
management skills, IT skills, business awareness and behavioral
skills. Professions are an open, ecological system in which individual
professions exit in interdependence. In day-to-day practice,
professionals mobilize a variety of resources both tangible and
abstract (Lamont & Molnars, 2002). Competencies reflect certain
traits, behaviors, skills, values and knowledge (J okinen, 2005).
Public procurement professionals in modern times should have global
competencies. In this study, the contextualized skills required by
local government procurement professionals were examined taking
Uganda as a case of reference. The perceptions of procurement
professionals themselves on the skills required for effective
performance of the procurement process in a local government-
changing environment was the interest of the study.
METHODOLOGY
The sample
A sampling frame of 92 local government procurement
professionals who attended the national procurement forum
organized by the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets
(PPDA) in J une 2009 was used to select a sample size for this study.
The list involved procurement officers who managed the strategic,
tactical and operation procurement activities in the local governments.
Uganda at the time of the study had 80 district local governments and
12 municipal councils. It is a legal requirement that each of the 92
local government units should have a Procurement and Disposal Unit
(PDU) run by procurement professionals. The units are of different
sizes and therefore the number of procurement staff will differ from
one local government to another. However, for the purpose of the
procurement workshop, the public procurement regulatory authority
had identified one professional to represent each of these units.
Prior to the study, the researcher obtained a sampling frame
of all workshop participants from the PPDA offices. The
procurement professionals were stratified into those managing the
strategic, tactical and operational procurement tasks. This
classification strategy was arrived at basing on the job tittles from
principal procurement officers to procurement assistants. Using
stratified sampling, a sample of 80 professionals representing each of
the four regions of the country was selected. The selection took into
account the gender distribution of procurement staff in local
governments. The procurement laws of Uganda require accounting
officers to inform PPDA in a period of 21 days the personnel that
occupy the PDU on appointment and it was therefore easy to get the
background details of all the procurement professionals on the
sampling frame using the records available at the central procurement
authority.
The survey instrument
In a study, the methodology adopted depends on the nature
of research questions to be answered and the nature of the population
and sample size to be covered. In this study, the procedures involved
an extensive review of literature to identify important dimensions
measuring procurement or purchasing skills. The review involved an
analysis of the transactional and strategic skills framework by
Handfield & Eltantawy, (2006), and the skills framework by Kolchin
& Guinipero (1993). It also examined the skills for purchasers
proposed by Murphy (1995), the global competencies recommended
by J okinen (2005) and those competencies suggested by Storer and
Rajang (2002). This review resulted into formulation of a list of 50
skills into a survey instrument which were perceived to be critical for
procurement professionals in Uganda. The survey instrument used a
five-Likert scale to measure the perceptions of respondents on each
of the identified procurement skills. Previously, there was an in-depth
interview with three local government procurement professionals
about the skills required to manage procurement. This interview
validated the list of skills, which had been included in the
questionnaire as all the three professionals confirmed the need for all
skills. There were minor amendments in form of wording to the
survey instrument because of the interview.
Validity and reliability
Validity was determined using factor analysis while
reliability was determined through examining the cronbach alpha co-
efficient using the SPSS programme. Factor analysis is a data
reduction technique used to identify a relatively small number of
factors (constructs) from a set of many interrelated variables (Amin,
2005). It seeks to resolve a large set of measured variables in terms of
relatively few categories, known as factors (Kothari, 2004) and
therefore helps to reduce the number of variables to a meaningful,
interpretable and manageable set of factors (Sekaran, 2003).
The study used exploratory factor analysis, which resulted
into a number of principal components with each being associated to
a set of procurement skills. Using commonalities and the factor
loadings for each of the items that loaded on the principal
components, a skills requirement framework was developed.
Through SPSS programme, all the 50 items, which measured the
procurement skills, were earlier subjected to a reliability analysis and
it was found to be with co-efficient of 0.92, which suggested a high
degree of reliability for the instruments. The in-depth interviews
conducted with three local government professionals provided an
additional step for ensuring validity and reliability of the survey
outcomes.
RESULTS
SAMPLE CHARACTERISTICS
The results were from practicing procurement professionals
in Uganda’s local government systems. Out of the 59 professionals
who responded to the survey instrument, 3(5.1%) were principal
procurement officers (the highest professional status in a local
government in Uganda), 27(45.8%) were senior procurement officers
(the second highest professional status) while 29(49.2%) were
procurement officers (the third in hierarchy). There are not more than
10 local government units, which are headed by principle
procurement officers. The majority are headed by procurement
officers due to lack of experienced procurement professionals willing
to work in local governments most of which are in remote locations.
When asked to indicate which level of procurement activity they
were in charge of, 31(52.2%) indicated they managed strategic
procurement activities, 12(20.3%) handled tactical level procurement
activities while 16(27.1%) were in charge of operational procurement
activities.
In the study, 46(78.0%) of the respondents were male while
13(22.0%) were females and their educational qualifications varied.
The study had 57.6% respondents with Bachelor’s degrees, 22% had
professional qualifications like Chartered Institute of Purchasing and
Supply (CIPS) and 20.3% possessed both Bachelor’s degree and a
procurement professional qualification. Thus, most of the
procurement personnel in Uganda’s local governments were
considered to have adequate educational qualifications essential for
effective managing the procurement function. These included 37.3%
in the age category of 20-30 years , 54.2% who were between 31 and
40 years of age while 8.5% were above 40 years of age. In Uganda,
the relatively young professionals manage the procurement function.
Due to its recency procurement has attracted most young people.
The study respondents had varying years of experience with
64.4% having between 1 and 3 years of working experience in the
procurement function compared to 20.3% who had over 4 years of
experience and 15.3% had less than 1 year of procurement work
experience. It is conclusive therefore that while the procurement
professionals have adequate qualifications, the majority have limited
procurement work experience. In Uganda, at both central and local
government levels, there is an increasing interest in the way
procurement is managed (Basheka, 2009) which calls for a team of
experienced procurement staff to meet the stakeholder expectations.
The public is sensitive to a good public procurement system because
they expect it to result into more goods and services that benefit the
end users (Arrowsmith & Trybus, 2003).
Procurement skills Requirements
Procurement professionals need a set of flexible skills due to
changing local government contexts. No single skill can be adequate
to manage the procurement portfolio of great complexity in local
government systems. Procurement tasks demand professionals with
high-level strategic, tactical as well as operational skills. These skills
should potentially take a broader supply chain multi-disciplinary and
integrative approach. The study examined 50 skills, which were
considered a requirement by local government procurement
personnel in the new work environment. Using factor analysis, 20 of
the most important skills required by local government procurement
professionals emerged. The factor analysis results into a list of 20
skills, with for a total variance of 66 %( KMO =0.731, Sig. 0.000).
Table 1 and 2 present the descriptive and factor analysis results of the
20 procurement skills respectively.
Table 1- Descriptive results for the skills requirement
Items M SD
1. Ability to develop supplier relationships 4.08 1.07
2. Global skills to follow procurements 3.97 1.14
3. Ability to negotiate contracts 3.95 1.18
4. Ability to analyze second-tier suppliers 3.90 1.03
5. Ability to effectively manage their own
time
4.40 .90
6. Time management in meeting demands 4.32 .82
7. An understanding of organizational
business
4.46 .73
8. Continuous professional development 4.61 .81
9. Ability to abide by ethical code of conduct 4.56 .84
10. Procurement planning skills 4.86 .57
11. Ability to make timely decisions 4.47 .90
12. Ability to use the internet 4.14 1.07
13. Skills of verbal communication 4.03 1.10
14. Entrepreneurial spirit 3.92 1.09
15. Possession of an inquisitive mind 4.37 .85
16. Ability to solve noble problems 3.90 1.21
17. Total life cycle approach thinking 4.73 .55
18. Customer focus skills 4.26 .89
19. Interpersonal skills 4.39 .74
20. Possession of business skills 4.17 1.00
Basing on the mean scores, all the procurement skills were
highly rated by the respondents who believed that for procurement
efficiency to be realized, the professionals needed a multiple set of
skills. Results in the above table indicate that possession of skills for
Item 1 2 3 4
Ability to develop supplier
relationships
.83
Global skills to follow
procurements
.78
Ability to negotiate
contracts
.72
Ability to analyze second-
tier suppliers
.67
Ability to effectively
manage their own time
.67
Time management in
meeting demands
.66
An understanding of
organizational business
.64
Continuous professional
development
.89
Ability to abide by ethical
code of conduct
.86
Procurement planning
skills
.75
Ability to make timely
decisions
.73
Ability to use the internet .65
Skills of verbal
communication
.83
Entrepreneurial spirit .81
Possession of an
inquisitive mind
.74
Ability to solve noble
problems
.65
Total life cycle approach
thinking
.74
Customer focus skills .74
Interpersonal skills .63
Possession of business .60
skills
% age variance
33% 15% 10% 8%
procurement planning, skills related to total-life cycle
thinking by professionals and the need for continuous professional
development by local government professionals were the most highly
rated procurement skills by respondents. It was found that of the 59
professionals who participated in the study 54(91.5%) strongly
agreed and 4(6.8%) somehow agreed that the skills for procurement
planning were very critical for local government procurement
professionals in Uganda.
This finding confirms , this same author’s previous study
which confirmed a very strong significant relationship between
procurement planning and accountability of local government
systems in Uganda (Basheka, 2008). Respondents who had long
experience and a relatively short experience in local government,
with different gender categories supported the critical need for
procurement planning skills. For example, of the 46 male
respondents, 42(91.3%) strongly agreed that procurement planning
skills were critical for professionals while of the 13 female
respondents, 12(92.3%) supported the same view. Of the 31
professionals at a strategic level 28(90.3%) supported the need for
procurement planning skills. Among 12 professionals at a tactical
level, 11(91.7%) highly rated the need procurement planning skills in
the local government. Out of the 16 professionals at the operational
level 15(93.8%) supported the above argument
Table2- Factor analysis results on the critical skills Requirement
As public procurement professionals strive to achieve their
competing demands (Errigde & Mcllroy, 2002), the need for
comprehensive skills is critical. Table 2 indicates that the
procurement skills loaded on four principal components after factor
analysis .The first principal component with a total variance of 33%
was associated with seven procurement skills where it was found that
ability to develop supplier relationships was the most important skill
required by procurement professionals. The least procurement skills
were a need for professionals to have an understanding of the
business of the local governments. Global skills by procurement
professionals and ability to negotiate contracts were found to be
among other critical skills. Basing on the nature of the items that
loaded on this component, they were given a name of ‘strategic-
analytical’ skills.
Strategic-analytical skills are high-level skills, which every
local government professional needed to posses. Such skills were
required to minimize the high risks, associated with strategic
procurement activities. Strategic decisions of procurement are of a
long-term nature and require a heavy investment of resources, are
highly risky and require top management support and approval. Such
decisions usually affect a large number of stakeholders and require
strong capabilities in assessing their long-term implications. For
example, suppliers can have long -term implications on the
performance of any local government hence the necessity to have
skills of long- term supplier management.
The second component with a total variance of 15% had five
procurement skills, which were related to ‘technical tactical’ skills.
Technical skills are required to perform technical functions in the
process of procurement. These are specialized technical skills which
every ‘world-class’ local government professional needed to possess.
The most important of these skills was an ability to undertake
continuous professional development followed by the need to
understand and abide by an ethical code of conduct. Professionals
should continue to update their skills through professional
development programmes offered by professional associations.
Equally important is the need for them to abide by minimum ethical
standards expected by the law and professional standards of practice
and public service standards in Uganda.
The third principal component, which accounted for a total
variance of 10%, had four procurement skills. These were labeled
‘management skills’. Possession of strategic-analytical, technical-
tactical skills is not enough. Procurement is a management function
and professionals need management skills. Those managing
procurement provide leadership to their units and require a set of
managerial competencies to steer the procurement function. As
J okinen (2005) reported, the dynamics, complexity and diversity,
characteristic of global environments have led to increasing demands
on management and leadership competencies at all levels of
organization. This has implications for public procurement
professionals as procurement leaders and managers. Finally, the
fourth principal component with a total variance of 8% had four
procurement skills considered by the study respondents as critical for
local government procurement professionals. Based on the nature of
the skills, they related to operational activities of procurement and
hence they were labeled ‘analytical operational skills’.
The comparative ranking of factor loadings for the various
components resulted in the formulation of a Procurement Skills
Requirement Framework (PSRF) for local government professionals
in Uganda with the following components.
Table 5-Local Government Procurement skills Requirement Framework
Skill Category Type of procurement skills
Strategic
analytical
skills
• Ability to develop supplier
relationships with local
government service
providers
• Global skills to follow
procurement requirements
required by local
government departments
• Ability to negotiate effective
procurement contracts in a
local government context
Tactical –
Technical
procurement
skills
• Continuous procurement
professional development
skills in areas of strategic,
tactical and operational
domains
• Skills necessary for abiding
to ethical codes of conduct
demanded by local
government staff
• Ability to design and
implement procurement
planning in Local
government procurement
framework
Management
skills
• Verbal Communication
skills with internal and
external customers
• Entrepreneurial spirit
• An inquisitive mind
Analytical
operational
skills
• A total life cycle thinking
approach
• Customer focus skills
Most procurement practitioners in developing countries possess
technical procurement skills and lack knowledge of the larger policy
and other issues necessary to plan, manage and implement wide-
ranging reform efforts (Hunja, 2003). The framework above
identifies the 10 most important procurement skills required by local
government procurement professionals in Uganda; which go beyond
the procurement technical skills to include the skills of larger policy
and broader leadership and management competencies. Some of
these skills are of a technical nature, others are related to human
skills while others relate to conceptual skills as propounded by Kartz
(1955). In the study, respondents were further requested to list what
they thought were any other additional skills that they required to
perform the procurement function in Uganda’s context. The
following list was generated-
Table 3- Other procurement skills
Skills • Skills of ethically managing procurement
• Skills in global sourcing
• Skills of Procurement law and compliance
• Techniques in tendering of non consultancy services
• Relationship building skills
• Marketing skills
• Customer care management skills
• Risk management skills
• Research, development and IT skills
• Skills in management and administration
• Contract management and enforcement skills
Acquiring procurement skills requires a strategy of building the
capacity of the procurement professionals by relevant bodies . This
strategy will be successful if there is an integrated, sequenced and
well-coordinated approach, able to take into consideration and
addressing all the relevant factors likely to affect its success (Hameiri,
2009). The study asked procurement professionals to identify some
of the major problems, which they faced in the performance of their
duties. This question enlisted general challenges as a way of
collaborating the skills gap. Through content analysis, the following
problems were identified-
Table 4-Problems faced by procurement professionals
• Poor relationship with the public due to
perceived corruption
• Influence peddling from politicians and
technical staff
• Unethical providers who like bribing
procurement personnel
• Impractical legal framework
• Poor networking of procurement
professionals
• Lack of appropriate training and resource
for professionals
• Inadequate training of some professionals
• Political interference in their work
• Suppliers in most cases do not understand
the procurement procedures
• Fear of job security
• Poor remuneration
• Corruption among evaluation committees
• Too much work load in form of paper
work
• Lack of trust by stakeholders and
management
Some of these challenges are internal to the local governments
and other blend themselves to the external local government
environment. Procurement in Uganda accounts for over 70% of
public expenditure (Agaba &Shipman, 2007, OECD, 2005, Thai,
2008). Local governments are able to improve the delivery of
services if this area of great public expenditure is well managed. The
professionals who manage this function should possess the right
skills. The problems, which affect their performance, need to be
addressed at both organizational and individual levels. This requires a
system of measuring the performance of various interventions to gain
the stakeholders confidence.
DISCUSSION
There are certain goods and services that all citizens of any
county value like security, better health services, education, water
and sanitation, better road networks, electricity and other ‘public
goods’. Citizens rely on the machinery of governments to provide
such crucial services. Governments through their bureaucratic
machinery entrust a number of its functions to public servants whose
core skills and knowledge should translate to better services. Public
procurement is one such crucial function of public financial
management. Professionals need adequate capacity to manage this
process efficiently and effectively at all levels of government.
Having procurement capacity involves understanding
globally recognized procurement principles, knowledge of national
laws, regulations and procedures, and a commitment to ethical
responsibilities (J ones, 2007). However, as Hunja (2003) rightly
observed, most procurement practitioners in developing countries
possess technical procurement skills and lack knowledge of other
issues necessary to plan, manage and implement wide-ranging reform
efforts. In day-to-day practice, professionals mobilize a variety of
resources both tangible, abstract (Lamont & Molnars, 2002), and
require a complex set of skills.
As suggested by Thai(2001), public procurement in itself is
an extremely complicated function which requires interdisciplinary
skills and knowledge (or multiple disciplines), including economics,
political science, public administration, accounting, marketing, law,
operations research, engineering, and architecture, among others. The
purchasing role has shifted from that of a buyer to that of a
purchasing professional managing strategic long-term, complex
agreement between internal stakeholders and suppliers (Faes et al,
2001). For the function to be elevated to a strategic level requires
professionals to posses a set of skills and competencies (Carr &
Smeltzer, 2000). This paper has highlighted some of the critical skills
required by professionals to manage procurement in the local
governments of Uganda.
CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS
This paper has examined the skills required by Uganda’s
local government procurement professionals in a changing world of
work. The results were obtained from practicing professionals at
strategic, tactical and operational levels of procurement decision
making. The results affirm that no single skill is essential to
effectively and efficiently manage the procurement function in a
dynamic local government environment. Instead, procurement
professional need a multiple set of skills-strategic-analytical skills,
technical skills, management skills as well as the analytical
operational skills. The right combination of skills will largely
dependant on the level of procurement decision making.
Professionals managing strategic procurement activities will require
more high-level strategic analytical skills compared to those
managing the tactical and operational activities. In the changing
environment, strategic analytical skills alone cannot be an answer to
addressing the challenges faced by professionals.
In the new world of work, the professionals require
management and leadership skills of high order. The skills must
enable them to efficiently fulfill their mandates in a dynamic
environment. The findings of this study emanate from a Ugandan
context but appeal to wider context in terms of management and
policy implications. To managers and policy makers; there is a need
for a system of equipping the professionals with new skills and
knowledge through training and capacity building which should take
into account the skills requirement framework presented in this paper.
ACKNOWLGDEMNETS
I wish to acknowledge the ingenuity of PPDA (the capacity
building Unit) for having allowed me an opportunity to conduct the
study during their workshop organized in J une 2009. The staff of the
authority who allowed me free acess to the study respondents did a
commendable job. I equally acknowledge the contribution of all the
respondents for the time taken to fill in the survey instrument.
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doc_237369169.pdf
This paper examines the skills required by public procurement professionals in a local government context in Uganda. The changing local government context has significant implications on the ideal skills required by procurement professionals.
PUBLIC PROCUREMENT SKILLS REQUIREMENT
FRAMEWORK FOR LOCAL GOVERNMENT SYSTEMS IN
UGANDA: PERCEPTIONS FROM PROFESSIONALS
Benon C. Basheka
ABSTRACT
This paper examines the skills required by public procurement
professionals in a local government context in Uganda. The changing
local government context has significant implications on the ideal
skills required by procurement professionals. The objectives of the
study were to assess the strategic, tactical, and operational skills
required by procurement professionals in Uganda’s Local
Governments. At the time of the survey, Uganda had 92 local
governments and a sample of 80 procurement officers was selected
for the study. Of the sampled professionals, 59 of them filled a 50-
item survey instrument (a response rate of 73.4%).Using factor
analysis to confirm construct and content validity, this paper
identifies a set of key skills that local government procurement staff
in Uganda need to have if they are to efficiently and effectively
manage the procurement function. The paper presents a skills
requirements framework (SRF) for procurement practitioners in local
government systems of Uganda. The results are original and
contribute to the increasing body of public procurement in
developing countries.
INTRODUCTION
Dedicated, energetic, and ethical employees are always hard
to find, and hiring individuals with special skills is even harder (Lan,
Riley& Cayer, 2005). The requirements to educate professionals and
equip them with new and higher-level skills have consequently
become urgent (Sauber et al, 2008). A skill is the ability either to
perform some specific behavioral task or the ability to perform some
specific cognitive process that is related to some particular task
(Peterson& Van Fleet, 2004). Skills required by purchasing
professional have changed due to the role shift of the purchasing
function itself. From that of a buyer to that of a professional
managing strategic long-term, complex agreement between internal
stakeholders and suppliers (Faes et al, 2001); professionals require a
complex set of managerial and technical professional skills. These
role shifts affect professionals in both developed and developing
countries. It affects procurement professionals in central and local
government systems as well as those in the public and private sector
environments.
For purchasing to be at a strategic level, professionals need
to posses a set of skills and competencies (Carr & Smeltzer, 2000).
Governments use public procurement to undertake public works,
build roads, provide health care, and provide education and public
order (Errigde & Mcllroy, 2002). The practitioners who manage this
function usually face many challenges (Thai, 2005). The challenges
differ among local and central government practitioners but there are
a number of similar challenges. For example, professionals in
purchasing and supply management have faced a challenging ethical
environment (Cooper, Farank & Kemp, 2000); and this will appear in
any sector. Of course, it may be high in government procurement
environments because of the high risks in the procurement process.
In either case, the dynamics, complexity and diversity, characteristic
of global environments have led to increasing demands on
management and leadership competencies (J okinen, 2005) demanded
of procurement professionals.
Although much has been written about the skills required of
a purchasing/ supply management professional, very little academic
research has been undertaken on this topic (Dawn, 2000).Professions
of all types are affected by globalization of markets and the
information technology revolution (Amos &Chance. 2001). The
interest in supply chain management has left much of the knowledge
on the subject residing in narrow functional silos of purchasing,
logistics, IT, and marketing. This has partly contributed to lack of
consensus on the conceptual and research methodologies of supply
chain management (Burgess, et al, 2006); including public
procurement. The general interest has been in supply chain
management, but not much attention has been paid to the purchasing
professionals who are responsible for managing and implementing
the new strategies (Humphreys, 2001).
Public procurement professionals have to strive to achieve
three competing demands (Errigde & Mcllroy, 2002) of meeting
commercial interests with key themes of value for money, economy,
efficiency and effectiveness; the regulatory interests with key themes
of competition, transparency, equality and compliance and the social
interests whose key themes include public interest, employment
concerns, social exclusion, economic development and environment
policy. In an effort to attain these demands, organizations constantly
look for employees who have skills necessary to deal with the wide
variety of tasks faced by purchasing professionals (Monczka et al,
1998). Procurement professionals in a local government context will
undoubtedly be expected to have a multiplicity of skills to manage
the critical acquisition processes.
Purchasing (procurement) professionals are no longer
responsible for non-value adding activities and paperwork processing.
They should be responsible for activities, which contribute
effectively to the performance metrics of an organization. The
modern purchasing managers must emphasize cross-functional
interaction with groups outside purchasing. The need to be flexible,
adaptive and boundary spanning are therefore important traits for
both organizations and individuals (Monczka et al.; 2004, 1998).
There has been a realization of the important contribution that
purchasing and supply management can have on firm performance
(Boyd, 1994, Cousins, Lawson, and Squire, 2006, Humphreys, 2001,
Macbeth, 1994). This realization directly influences the skills
procurement professionals require (Humphreys, 2001).
According to Guinipero, Handfield & Eltantawy, (2006)
purchasing professionals need transactional and strategic skills.
Transactional skills are required to manage transactional activities
like executing transactions with suppliers, using e-systems to obtain
standard or indirect items through catalogues, generating and
forwarding material releases and managing accounts payable.
Strategic skills are required to manage strategic activities like
strategic relationships, developing company-wide electronic systems,
developing and managing alliances and partnerships as well as
managing critical commodities. According to the authors, the top five
skills required to support the strategic role of supply managers
included-
(1) Team building skills(leadership, decision-making, influencing
and compromising)
(2) Strategic planning skills(project scoping, goal setting and
execution)
(3) Communication skills(presentation, public speaking, listening
and writing)
(4) Technical skills(web-enabled research and sourcing analysis)
and ;
(5) Broader financial skills (cost accounting and making the
business case).
In similar attempts, Kolchin & Guinipero (1993) proposed
three skill areas of business, interpersonal and technical skills
important to the procurement function. Business skills include skills
of marketing analysis, negotiating with partners, managing internal
and external relationships. They also include global sourcing
development, change management, and organizational skills.
Interpersonal skills include risk taking, written and oral
communication, conflict resolution, influence and persuasion, group
dynamics, leadership, problem solving, interpersonal and cultural
awareness. Technical skills include cost analysis, product knowledge,
computer literacy, total quality management and government
legislation. In similar attempt, Murphy (1995) identified four skills
important for purchasers, which included- negotiation, management,
computer literacy and mathematics. In an interview research, Carr &
Smeltzer (2000) identify 35 purchasing skills, which were divided
into three categories of technical, behavior and skill techniques.
Public Procurement is now a global discipline. Those
managing the function at both local and central government levels are
required to be global leaders or ‘World-Class’ professionals. Global
leaders have desired mental characteristics which J okinen (2005)
suggests to include optimism, self-regulation, social judgment skills,
empathy, motivation to work in an international environment,
cognitive skills, as well as acceptance of complexity and its
contradictions. The behavioral skills for global leaders include social
skills, networking skills, and knowledge. Purchasing management
has a number of resources available to meet its objectives and must
work continuously towards improved utilization of these resources.
Globalization has been associated with a major revolution in
information and communication technology. There is need for greater
reliance on the use of information and on web-based information
technology to support purchasing and supply management decision-
making (Guinipero, Handfield & Eltantawy, 2006). Information and
communication technology will continue to play a key role in
contemporary organizations (Eriksson-Zetterquist, et al; 2009).
Writing from a financial perspective, Storer and Rajang
(2002) observed that the structural changes that had affected
organizations increased the importance of technical skills, risk
management skills, IT skills, business awareness and behavioral
skills. Professions are an open, ecological system in which individual
professions exit in interdependence. In day-to-day practice,
professionals mobilize a variety of resources both tangible and
abstract (Lamont & Molnars, 2002). Competencies reflect certain
traits, behaviors, skills, values and knowledge (J okinen, 2005).
Public procurement professionals in modern times should have global
competencies. In this study, the contextualized skills required by
local government procurement professionals were examined taking
Uganda as a case of reference. The perceptions of procurement
professionals themselves on the skills required for effective
performance of the procurement process in a local government-
changing environment was the interest of the study.
METHODOLOGY
The sample
A sampling frame of 92 local government procurement
professionals who attended the national procurement forum
organized by the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets
(PPDA) in J une 2009 was used to select a sample size for this study.
The list involved procurement officers who managed the strategic,
tactical and operation procurement activities in the local governments.
Uganda at the time of the study had 80 district local governments and
12 municipal councils. It is a legal requirement that each of the 92
local government units should have a Procurement and Disposal Unit
(PDU) run by procurement professionals. The units are of different
sizes and therefore the number of procurement staff will differ from
one local government to another. However, for the purpose of the
procurement workshop, the public procurement regulatory authority
had identified one professional to represent each of these units.
Prior to the study, the researcher obtained a sampling frame
of all workshop participants from the PPDA offices. The
procurement professionals were stratified into those managing the
strategic, tactical and operational procurement tasks. This
classification strategy was arrived at basing on the job tittles from
principal procurement officers to procurement assistants. Using
stratified sampling, a sample of 80 professionals representing each of
the four regions of the country was selected. The selection took into
account the gender distribution of procurement staff in local
governments. The procurement laws of Uganda require accounting
officers to inform PPDA in a period of 21 days the personnel that
occupy the PDU on appointment and it was therefore easy to get the
background details of all the procurement professionals on the
sampling frame using the records available at the central procurement
authority.
The survey instrument
In a study, the methodology adopted depends on the nature
of research questions to be answered and the nature of the population
and sample size to be covered. In this study, the procedures involved
an extensive review of literature to identify important dimensions
measuring procurement or purchasing skills. The review involved an
analysis of the transactional and strategic skills framework by
Handfield & Eltantawy, (2006), and the skills framework by Kolchin
& Guinipero (1993). It also examined the skills for purchasers
proposed by Murphy (1995), the global competencies recommended
by J okinen (2005) and those competencies suggested by Storer and
Rajang (2002). This review resulted into formulation of a list of 50
skills into a survey instrument which were perceived to be critical for
procurement professionals in Uganda. The survey instrument used a
five-Likert scale to measure the perceptions of respondents on each
of the identified procurement skills. Previously, there was an in-depth
interview with three local government procurement professionals
about the skills required to manage procurement. This interview
validated the list of skills, which had been included in the
questionnaire as all the three professionals confirmed the need for all
skills. There were minor amendments in form of wording to the
survey instrument because of the interview.
Validity and reliability
Validity was determined using factor analysis while
reliability was determined through examining the cronbach alpha co-
efficient using the SPSS programme. Factor analysis is a data
reduction technique used to identify a relatively small number of
factors (constructs) from a set of many interrelated variables (Amin,
2005). It seeks to resolve a large set of measured variables in terms of
relatively few categories, known as factors (Kothari, 2004) and
therefore helps to reduce the number of variables to a meaningful,
interpretable and manageable set of factors (Sekaran, 2003).
The study used exploratory factor analysis, which resulted
into a number of principal components with each being associated to
a set of procurement skills. Using commonalities and the factor
loadings for each of the items that loaded on the principal
components, a skills requirement framework was developed.
Through SPSS programme, all the 50 items, which measured the
procurement skills, were earlier subjected to a reliability analysis and
it was found to be with co-efficient of 0.92, which suggested a high
degree of reliability for the instruments. The in-depth interviews
conducted with three local government professionals provided an
additional step for ensuring validity and reliability of the survey
outcomes.
RESULTS
SAMPLE CHARACTERISTICS
The results were from practicing procurement professionals
in Uganda’s local government systems. Out of the 59 professionals
who responded to the survey instrument, 3(5.1%) were principal
procurement officers (the highest professional status in a local
government in Uganda), 27(45.8%) were senior procurement officers
(the second highest professional status) while 29(49.2%) were
procurement officers (the third in hierarchy). There are not more than
10 local government units, which are headed by principle
procurement officers. The majority are headed by procurement
officers due to lack of experienced procurement professionals willing
to work in local governments most of which are in remote locations.
When asked to indicate which level of procurement activity they
were in charge of, 31(52.2%) indicated they managed strategic
procurement activities, 12(20.3%) handled tactical level procurement
activities while 16(27.1%) were in charge of operational procurement
activities.
In the study, 46(78.0%) of the respondents were male while
13(22.0%) were females and their educational qualifications varied.
The study had 57.6% respondents with Bachelor’s degrees, 22% had
professional qualifications like Chartered Institute of Purchasing and
Supply (CIPS) and 20.3% possessed both Bachelor’s degree and a
procurement professional qualification. Thus, most of the
procurement personnel in Uganda’s local governments were
considered to have adequate educational qualifications essential for
effective managing the procurement function. These included 37.3%
in the age category of 20-30 years , 54.2% who were between 31 and
40 years of age while 8.5% were above 40 years of age. In Uganda,
the relatively young professionals manage the procurement function.
Due to its recency procurement has attracted most young people.
The study respondents had varying years of experience with
64.4% having between 1 and 3 years of working experience in the
procurement function compared to 20.3% who had over 4 years of
experience and 15.3% had less than 1 year of procurement work
experience. It is conclusive therefore that while the procurement
professionals have adequate qualifications, the majority have limited
procurement work experience. In Uganda, at both central and local
government levels, there is an increasing interest in the way
procurement is managed (Basheka, 2009) which calls for a team of
experienced procurement staff to meet the stakeholder expectations.
The public is sensitive to a good public procurement system because
they expect it to result into more goods and services that benefit the
end users (Arrowsmith & Trybus, 2003).
Procurement skills Requirements
Procurement professionals need a set of flexible skills due to
changing local government contexts. No single skill can be adequate
to manage the procurement portfolio of great complexity in local
government systems. Procurement tasks demand professionals with
high-level strategic, tactical as well as operational skills. These skills
should potentially take a broader supply chain multi-disciplinary and
integrative approach. The study examined 50 skills, which were
considered a requirement by local government procurement
personnel in the new work environment. Using factor analysis, 20 of
the most important skills required by local government procurement
professionals emerged. The factor analysis results into a list of 20
skills, with for a total variance of 66 %( KMO =0.731, Sig. 0.000).
Table 1 and 2 present the descriptive and factor analysis results of the
20 procurement skills respectively.
Table 1- Descriptive results for the skills requirement
Items M SD
1. Ability to develop supplier relationships 4.08 1.07
2. Global skills to follow procurements 3.97 1.14
3. Ability to negotiate contracts 3.95 1.18
4. Ability to analyze second-tier suppliers 3.90 1.03
5. Ability to effectively manage their own
time
4.40 .90
6. Time management in meeting demands 4.32 .82
7. An understanding of organizational
business
4.46 .73
8. Continuous professional development 4.61 .81
9. Ability to abide by ethical code of conduct 4.56 .84
10. Procurement planning skills 4.86 .57
11. Ability to make timely decisions 4.47 .90
12. Ability to use the internet 4.14 1.07
13. Skills of verbal communication 4.03 1.10
14. Entrepreneurial spirit 3.92 1.09
15. Possession of an inquisitive mind 4.37 .85
16. Ability to solve noble problems 3.90 1.21
17. Total life cycle approach thinking 4.73 .55
18. Customer focus skills 4.26 .89
19. Interpersonal skills 4.39 .74
20. Possession of business skills 4.17 1.00
Basing on the mean scores, all the procurement skills were
highly rated by the respondents who believed that for procurement
efficiency to be realized, the professionals needed a multiple set of
skills. Results in the above table indicate that possession of skills for
Item 1 2 3 4
Ability to develop supplier
relationships
.83
Global skills to follow
procurements
.78
Ability to negotiate
contracts
.72
Ability to analyze second-
tier suppliers
.67
Ability to effectively
manage their own time
.67
Time management in
meeting demands
.66
An understanding of
organizational business
.64
Continuous professional
development
.89
Ability to abide by ethical
code of conduct
.86
Procurement planning
skills
.75
Ability to make timely
decisions
.73
Ability to use the internet .65
Skills of verbal
communication
.83
Entrepreneurial spirit .81
Possession of an
inquisitive mind
.74
Ability to solve noble
problems
.65
Total life cycle approach
thinking
.74
Customer focus skills .74
Interpersonal skills .63
Possession of business .60
skills
% age variance
33% 15% 10% 8%
procurement planning, skills related to total-life cycle
thinking by professionals and the need for continuous professional
development by local government professionals were the most highly
rated procurement skills by respondents. It was found that of the 59
professionals who participated in the study 54(91.5%) strongly
agreed and 4(6.8%) somehow agreed that the skills for procurement
planning were very critical for local government procurement
professionals in Uganda.
This finding confirms , this same author’s previous study
which confirmed a very strong significant relationship between
procurement planning and accountability of local government
systems in Uganda (Basheka, 2008). Respondents who had long
experience and a relatively short experience in local government,
with different gender categories supported the critical need for
procurement planning skills. For example, of the 46 male
respondents, 42(91.3%) strongly agreed that procurement planning
skills were critical for professionals while of the 13 female
respondents, 12(92.3%) supported the same view. Of the 31
professionals at a strategic level 28(90.3%) supported the need for
procurement planning skills. Among 12 professionals at a tactical
level, 11(91.7%) highly rated the need procurement planning skills in
the local government. Out of the 16 professionals at the operational
level 15(93.8%) supported the above argument
Table2- Factor analysis results on the critical skills Requirement
As public procurement professionals strive to achieve their
competing demands (Errigde & Mcllroy, 2002), the need for
comprehensive skills is critical. Table 2 indicates that the
procurement skills loaded on four principal components after factor
analysis .The first principal component with a total variance of 33%
was associated with seven procurement skills where it was found that
ability to develop supplier relationships was the most important skill
required by procurement professionals. The least procurement skills
were a need for professionals to have an understanding of the
business of the local governments. Global skills by procurement
professionals and ability to negotiate contracts were found to be
among other critical skills. Basing on the nature of the items that
loaded on this component, they were given a name of ‘strategic-
analytical’ skills.
Strategic-analytical skills are high-level skills, which every
local government professional needed to posses. Such skills were
required to minimize the high risks, associated with strategic
procurement activities. Strategic decisions of procurement are of a
long-term nature and require a heavy investment of resources, are
highly risky and require top management support and approval. Such
decisions usually affect a large number of stakeholders and require
strong capabilities in assessing their long-term implications. For
example, suppliers can have long -term implications on the
performance of any local government hence the necessity to have
skills of long- term supplier management.
The second component with a total variance of 15% had five
procurement skills, which were related to ‘technical tactical’ skills.
Technical skills are required to perform technical functions in the
process of procurement. These are specialized technical skills which
every ‘world-class’ local government professional needed to possess.
The most important of these skills was an ability to undertake
continuous professional development followed by the need to
understand and abide by an ethical code of conduct. Professionals
should continue to update their skills through professional
development programmes offered by professional associations.
Equally important is the need for them to abide by minimum ethical
standards expected by the law and professional standards of practice
and public service standards in Uganda.
The third principal component, which accounted for a total
variance of 10%, had four procurement skills. These were labeled
‘management skills’. Possession of strategic-analytical, technical-
tactical skills is not enough. Procurement is a management function
and professionals need management skills. Those managing
procurement provide leadership to their units and require a set of
managerial competencies to steer the procurement function. As
J okinen (2005) reported, the dynamics, complexity and diversity,
characteristic of global environments have led to increasing demands
on management and leadership competencies at all levels of
organization. This has implications for public procurement
professionals as procurement leaders and managers. Finally, the
fourth principal component with a total variance of 8% had four
procurement skills considered by the study respondents as critical for
local government procurement professionals. Based on the nature of
the skills, they related to operational activities of procurement and
hence they were labeled ‘analytical operational skills’.
The comparative ranking of factor loadings for the various
components resulted in the formulation of a Procurement Skills
Requirement Framework (PSRF) for local government professionals
in Uganda with the following components.
Table 5-Local Government Procurement skills Requirement Framework
Skill Category Type of procurement skills
Strategic
analytical
skills
• Ability to develop supplier
relationships with local
government service
providers
• Global skills to follow
procurement requirements
required by local
government departments
• Ability to negotiate effective
procurement contracts in a
local government context
Tactical –
Technical
procurement
skills
• Continuous procurement
professional development
skills in areas of strategic,
tactical and operational
domains
• Skills necessary for abiding
to ethical codes of conduct
demanded by local
government staff
• Ability to design and
implement procurement
planning in Local
government procurement
framework
Management
skills
• Verbal Communication
skills with internal and
external customers
• Entrepreneurial spirit
• An inquisitive mind
Analytical
operational
skills
• A total life cycle thinking
approach
• Customer focus skills
Most procurement practitioners in developing countries possess
technical procurement skills and lack knowledge of the larger policy
and other issues necessary to plan, manage and implement wide-
ranging reform efforts (Hunja, 2003). The framework above
identifies the 10 most important procurement skills required by local
government procurement professionals in Uganda; which go beyond
the procurement technical skills to include the skills of larger policy
and broader leadership and management competencies. Some of
these skills are of a technical nature, others are related to human
skills while others relate to conceptual skills as propounded by Kartz
(1955). In the study, respondents were further requested to list what
they thought were any other additional skills that they required to
perform the procurement function in Uganda’s context. The
following list was generated-
Table 3- Other procurement skills
Skills • Skills of ethically managing procurement
• Skills in global sourcing
• Skills of Procurement law and compliance
• Techniques in tendering of non consultancy services
• Relationship building skills
• Marketing skills
• Customer care management skills
• Risk management skills
• Research, development and IT skills
• Skills in management and administration
• Contract management and enforcement skills
Acquiring procurement skills requires a strategy of building the
capacity of the procurement professionals by relevant bodies . This
strategy will be successful if there is an integrated, sequenced and
well-coordinated approach, able to take into consideration and
addressing all the relevant factors likely to affect its success (Hameiri,
2009). The study asked procurement professionals to identify some
of the major problems, which they faced in the performance of their
duties. This question enlisted general challenges as a way of
collaborating the skills gap. Through content analysis, the following
problems were identified-
Table 4-Problems faced by procurement professionals
• Poor relationship with the public due to
perceived corruption
• Influence peddling from politicians and
technical staff
• Unethical providers who like bribing
procurement personnel
• Impractical legal framework
• Poor networking of procurement
professionals
• Lack of appropriate training and resource
for professionals
• Inadequate training of some professionals
• Political interference in their work
• Suppliers in most cases do not understand
the procurement procedures
• Fear of job security
• Poor remuneration
• Corruption among evaluation committees
• Too much work load in form of paper
work
• Lack of trust by stakeholders and
management
Some of these challenges are internal to the local governments
and other blend themselves to the external local government
environment. Procurement in Uganda accounts for over 70% of
public expenditure (Agaba &Shipman, 2007, OECD, 2005, Thai,
2008). Local governments are able to improve the delivery of
services if this area of great public expenditure is well managed. The
professionals who manage this function should possess the right
skills. The problems, which affect their performance, need to be
addressed at both organizational and individual levels. This requires a
system of measuring the performance of various interventions to gain
the stakeholders confidence.
DISCUSSION
There are certain goods and services that all citizens of any
county value like security, better health services, education, water
and sanitation, better road networks, electricity and other ‘public
goods’. Citizens rely on the machinery of governments to provide
such crucial services. Governments through their bureaucratic
machinery entrust a number of its functions to public servants whose
core skills and knowledge should translate to better services. Public
procurement is one such crucial function of public financial
management. Professionals need adequate capacity to manage this
process efficiently and effectively at all levels of government.
Having procurement capacity involves understanding
globally recognized procurement principles, knowledge of national
laws, regulations and procedures, and a commitment to ethical
responsibilities (J ones, 2007). However, as Hunja (2003) rightly
observed, most procurement practitioners in developing countries
possess technical procurement skills and lack knowledge of other
issues necessary to plan, manage and implement wide-ranging reform
efforts. In day-to-day practice, professionals mobilize a variety of
resources both tangible, abstract (Lamont & Molnars, 2002), and
require a complex set of skills.
As suggested by Thai(2001), public procurement in itself is
an extremely complicated function which requires interdisciplinary
skills and knowledge (or multiple disciplines), including economics,
political science, public administration, accounting, marketing, law,
operations research, engineering, and architecture, among others. The
purchasing role has shifted from that of a buyer to that of a
purchasing professional managing strategic long-term, complex
agreement between internal stakeholders and suppliers (Faes et al,
2001). For the function to be elevated to a strategic level requires
professionals to posses a set of skills and competencies (Carr &
Smeltzer, 2000). This paper has highlighted some of the critical skills
required by professionals to manage procurement in the local
governments of Uganda.
CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS
This paper has examined the skills required by Uganda’s
local government procurement professionals in a changing world of
work. The results were obtained from practicing professionals at
strategic, tactical and operational levels of procurement decision
making. The results affirm that no single skill is essential to
effectively and efficiently manage the procurement function in a
dynamic local government environment. Instead, procurement
professional need a multiple set of skills-strategic-analytical skills,
technical skills, management skills as well as the analytical
operational skills. The right combination of skills will largely
dependant on the level of procurement decision making.
Professionals managing strategic procurement activities will require
more high-level strategic analytical skills compared to those
managing the tactical and operational activities. In the changing
environment, strategic analytical skills alone cannot be an answer to
addressing the challenges faced by professionals.
In the new world of work, the professionals require
management and leadership skills of high order. The skills must
enable them to efficiently fulfill their mandates in a dynamic
environment. The findings of this study emanate from a Ugandan
context but appeal to wider context in terms of management and
policy implications. To managers and policy makers; there is a need
for a system of equipping the professionals with new skills and
knowledge through training and capacity building which should take
into account the skills requirement framework presented in this paper.
ACKNOWLGDEMNETS
I wish to acknowledge the ingenuity of PPDA (the capacity
building Unit) for having allowed me an opportunity to conduct the
study during their workshop organized in J une 2009. The staff of the
authority who allowed me free acess to the study respondents did a
commendable job. I equally acknowledge the contribution of all the
respondents for the time taken to fill in the survey instrument.
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