ROLE OF ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING SYSTEMS ON
PROCUREMENT PERFORMANCE IN THE COUNTY GOVERNMENT
OF UASIN GISHU
Statement of the Problem
Procurement functions in County governments in Kenya have been characterized by poor
performance (Sosion, 2009). The lack of transparency in procurement process has made it
impossible to give contracts to the right suppliers, thus leading to several failures such as low
quality of staff, products, and documentation (Kavale & Mjomba, 2015). There is a huge budget
allocation, which detects overestimations of market price of labor and products. This has cost the
County more funds, which are poorly allocated and unaccounted for.
In Uasin Gishu County, the capacity to achieve best supply deals was not giving the exact results
and the process continues to deprive other suppliers a better chance to access the procurement
services; due to lack of viable information about its procurement process. Payments were delayed
when it came to service delivery and thus, hospitals were slow in delivering services as a result of
timelessness in supply. Furthermore, the hospitals were ineffective in paying the suppliers due to
late invoicing and delayed approvals for the supply of goods and services in hospitals in Uasin
Gishu County (Juma & Kimencu, 2017). The long-term effects of poor performance can be
identified in relation to poor revenue collection. Inadequacy of revenue has been the main reason
as to why counties such as Uasin Gishu are determined to address procurement problems.
Several studies have been conducted in Kenya with relation to ERP systems. These studies
include a study by Jepchirchir and Kwasira (2016) on establishing the effects of business to
suppliers interface, business to consumers interface and single purpose interface on service
delivery in procurement department at Geothermal Development Company in Nakuru. In relation
to this paper, there is lack of information on ERP adoption in Counties. The study also finds
inadequacy of information with regards to performances achieved from ERP. Another study by
Jepng’eno, AmuhayaIravo and Sakataka (2016) was done on the effects of accessibility of data,
database sharing, reporting for decision making and information sharing and networking on
organizational performance in Kitale Technical Training Institute. This study was unable to
outline the significant roles of ERP on procurement functions modules, inventory management
and stock control functions. This study was less efficient in addressing county’s perspective of
ERP systems. Juma and Kimencu (2017) did a study on effects of financial integration, human
resource management integration, procurement integration and ICT integration on performance of
State Corporations in Kenya. The lack of adequate information on procurement related
performance indicators.
It is due to the outlined knowledge gaps and problems outlined in this section that this study will
be undertaken to investigate the role of Enterprise Resource Planning systems on procurement
performance in the county government of Uasin Gishu County, Kenya.
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