EVALUATION OF THE IMPLEMENTATION OF PUBLIC PROCUREMENT LAW IN EKITI STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

The study evaluates the implementation of Ekiti State Public Procurement Law and its effect on the project delivery, with a view to providing feedback to the procurement regulatory authority and provides a database on the level of compliance of procuring entities to public procurement Law in Ekiti State. Five years down the line after the domestication of the Public Procurement Act (2007) as Ekiti State Public Procurement Law (2010),this is not a short time to evaluate the implementation of the Law on delivery of projects because full compliance with the provisions of the law has become a major challenge among procurement and construction stakeholders. Evaluation of the implementation of procurement is imperative if the Government is to be held accountable for the constitutional promises of the developments, security and welfare of the peoples as the primary purpose of government. Evaluation is also important not only to stakeholders who hope to benefit from the procurement activities of government but also to the government itself to be able to assess its performance and what needs to be done to ensure economic growth and development. The aim of this study is to ascertain level of awareness of the provisions of Ekiti State Public Procurement Law among the procurement and construction stakeholders, to appraise level of compliance with the provisions of the public procurement Law by the procurement and construction stakeholders, to evaluate the factors affecting the implementation of the Public Procurement Law and to evaluate effects of the implementation of the Public Procurement Law on project delivery in Ekiti State. Data were collected through the administration of structured questionnaire, the data collected were analysed using percentage, mean item score and Wilcoxon signed rank test. The result of the analysis showed that; the level of awareness is on the average; also the level of compliance with public procurement Law (2010) is on the average. The result revealed that the significant factors hindering the successful operations of the Ekiti State Public Procurement Law are political interference by the executives, political patronage/proliferation of incompetents’ contractor and procurement officials not part of decision making. The study concluded that the Ekiti state public procurement Law has medium effect on project delivery and therefore recommends that the executive arm of government should muster enough political will to ensure the successful operations of Law.