| dc.description.abstract | predominant buyer of road construction services and
hence its buying behavior affects the road construction industry. Although there are
Government policies and programmes in place to promote local contractors, the capacity
of the local contracting industry has remained low. The main aim of this study was to
determine the impact procurement practices in the road sector in Kenya have on Micro
and Small Enterprise (MSEs) contractor development and growth.
The research methodology involved a review of the economic, legal and political
environments in which contractors in Kenya operate; conducting in-depth interviews with
ten Senior Managers in the three Road Authorities. In addition, questionnaires were
distributed to 105 MSEs carrying out maintenance works in the regions sampled in the
study, namely Nairobi, Kajiado and Nyeri.
This study reveals that some of the Road Authorities’ procurement practices are
constraining the growth and development of MSEs. Among the challenges MSEs face is
high competition among themselves and from large firms, large contract sizes, unclear
contractor registration criteria and inadequate inter-firm cooperation.
This paper recommends that roadworks contracts are packaged into smaller lots to
increase the workload available for MSEs, contractor registration is reviewed and interfirm
co-operation is promoted through sub-contracting, joint ventures and formation of a
strong MSE contractor association. | en_US |
