Author: Austin Kanyoke1 Pearl Tamaklo2 Grace B. Addey3 Raphael Aryee4
Institute of Distance Learning, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science & Technology
Statement of the Problem
Regardless of the effort by the governments of developing countries, like Ghana and development partners like World Bank to improve the performance of the procurement function, public procurement is still marred by inefficiencies and effectiveness. This has resulted in unnecessary high operational costs, uncoordinated business activities, and failure to attract and retain experienced and skilled personnel in the procurement positions, thus affecting procurement performance (David, 2002; DCD/DAC, 2003; NSSF, 2005; Atkinson, 2006). This research work, therefore, seeks to investigate the effect of IT on the public sector procurement performance. Knudsen, (1999) also suggested that procurement performance starts from purchasing efficiency and effectiveness in the procurement function in order to change from being reactive to being proactive to attain set performance levels in an entity. The procurement system at the Judicial Service is marred with inefficiencies, delays, transparency and effectiveness which has affect procurement performance. The use of information technology has helped in achieving improved performance as practiced in the private sector which has yielded greater results (Aberdeen, 2005). The research work is therefore to determine its effect on procurement performance in the Judicial Service which lacks efficiency and effectiveness in the execution of its procurement activities. Information Technology which is an enabling tool to aid in the performance improvement is described to incorporate computer hardware, software, and communication systems, and the workforce and resources devoted to supporting the facilitation of information management, that is, the aggregation, analysis, and dissemination of task-related information (Weill, Peter 1992). The literature, therefore, supports that IT in organisational operations gives the organisations abilities to track processes with the use of technology to ensure every aspect of the operation is monitored in other to make improvements when necessary (Lee and Whang, 2001). This has therefore called for the researcher to investigate the Effect of Information Technology on Public Sector Procurement Performance in Ghana by using the Judicial Service as a case study.
Keyword: Stakeholder Management, Procurement Administration, Procurement Process
