Abstract:
The term procurement has become very crucial in the
contemporary world. Procurement is the act of making the right
product or service available to the right person at the right time at
the right price in the right place. Procurement implication can
impact on the overall cost of carrying out the decision in any
organization. However, the preliminary observations revealed that
most of the government and semi-governmental organizations in
Sri Lanka are experiencing poor performance in their procurement
process and wasting lots of resources including time and public
money. In this context, this study has been conducted to identify the
factors affecting to hinder the performance of the procurement
process in Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka (SUSL). The main
purpose of this study is to identify the factors affecting to hinder the
performance of the procurement process in Sabaragamuwa
University of Sri Lanka and to provide recommendations to enhance
the procurement practices in public procurement processes in Sri
Lanka. This study is mainly based on the primary data which has
been collected through in-depth interviews followed by a semi structured questionnaire. The sample size is 50 including
Procurement officers, Administrative officers related to the
procurement in the University, Project Coordinators and Activity
Coordinators, Project Assistants, and other officers related to the
projects which are going on within the Sabaragamuwa University of
Sri Lanka. Data has been collected using convenience and random
sampling methods and analyzed descriptively. As the main findings
of this study, it was revealed that lack of resources, lack of
knowledge regarding government procurement process, lack of
staff, poor coordination, deficiencies in the monitoring process, and
bureaucracy as the factors affecting to hinder the performance of
the procurement process in Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka.
Further, recommendations for increasing the level of procurement
practices and the way of increasing efficiency while eliminating
delays has also been provided in each stage of procurement.
