The impact of e- procurement on the operational performance of Parastatals in the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum in Kenya

Abstract

The study was about the impact of e-procurement on the operational performance of parastatals in the ministry of energyand petroleum in Kenya. The study’s objective was to determine the impact of e-procurement implementation on the operational performance of parastatals in the ministry of energy and petroleum.The study targeted the management of the parastatals and administered semi-structured questionnaires to them. Since the collected was mainly quantitative, descriptive statistics techniques such as means, standard deviations and frequencies were used to analyse the data. The study output was reported using figures and tables. The researcher used regression analysis and Pearson Moment Correlation to establish the the effect of e-requisition, supplier selection, e-tendering, tender evaluation, supplier relationship management and procurement record management on the operational performance of the parastatals in the respective ministry. The stud affirmed that all the the parastatals in the ministry of energy and petroleum have adopted e-procurement and are committed to equipping their staff with the necessary competencies and skills to ensure the success of their e-procurement projects. This level of commitment stems from statutory requirements for state corporations to do all their procurements online. The parastatals in the ministry of energy and petroleum have implemented e-requisition, supplier selection, e-tendering, tender evaluation, supplier relationship management and procurement record management to very great extent. The study also concluded that there is strong relationship (R= 0.710) between e-procurement implementation and operational performance of parastatals in the energy and petroleum ministry and that e-procurement implementation influencing 50.4% of the total variance in the operational performance of parastatals in the ministry of energy and petroleum. Further, the study concluded that e-requisition, supplier selection, e-tendering, e-tender evaluation, supplier relationship management and procurement record management on the operational performance of parastatals in the ministry of energy and petroleum have a positive and statistically significant effect on the operational performance of parastatals in the ministry. The study recommended that all the parastatals should set aside adequate budget for regularly training employees on e-procurement implementation and usage. The main limitation of the study was that respondents from the parastatals in the ministry of energy and petroleum were busy in their areas of work which delayed the completion of the data collection process. The researcher handled this challenge by allowing the respondents adequate time to fill in the questions.The fact that e-procurement implementation influences 50.4% of the operational performance of parastatals in the ministry of energy and petroleum implies that there are other factors that greatly influenced the remaining 49.6% of the operational performance of the parastatals. Therefore, there is need to establish these other factors through further studies.The findings of this study could not be generalized to private firms. The researcher therefore recommended that a similar study should be conducted among public sector firms to be used for comparative purposes.