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CONTRACT MANAGEMENT AND SERVICE DELIVERY IN UGANDA PARASTATAL BODIES

CASE STUDY: UGANDA NATIONAL BUREAU OF STANDARDS

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the study

In the ancient Athens, Roberts (1982) found out that service delivery was a matter of concern as a result, politicians had the responsibility to ensure service delivery effectiveness to the society and the people they lead and the leader’s effectiveness was even measured on the level of service delivery to his masses.

Meanwhile more than 1000 years in Medival England (Joliffe, 1937), service delivery effectiveness was priority by the citizens and as a result the leaders were supposed to be accountable to their masses. Service delivery effectiveness was the key characteristics of accountability divorced from ideas of political democracy. The king had responsibility of ensuring service delivery effectiveness and as a result, he was accountable to God for his actions, by the 12^th century, a division of labour and specialization had developed among his servants in a rudimentary system of fiscal accountability, The system created the need for machinery of control user those charged with carrying out the kings business and make them answerable for the way in which they perform their tasks. These developments strengthened the issues of service delivery.

From the sixteenth century on words, Locke (1947) found out that, the constitution history of England was largely about whether parliament could substitute itself for God by holding the king or his ministers accountable in a way of asserting its control over expenditure and the level of service delivery effectiveness.

Developing countries continue to face difficult challenges in meeting the needs of their populations and in achieving the millennium development goals. Over the last few decades, sectors like education, health has attracted worldwide recognition as a crucial compound of human development and poverty eradication, (The World Health Organisation (WHO) 2002, Annual Health Sector performance report, 2010/2011; United Nations development programme, 2010; ministry of health, 2010).

WHO (2004) notes that this recognition springs in part from the realization that one third of the world’s population lacks access to essential medicines and this actually contributes to poverty, mortality and indebtedness. Countries in sub Saharan Africa don’t have inadequate quantities of health work force proposed by world health organization. service under funding has meant continued inadequacies in the recruitment and deployment of trained personnel, frequent stock out of essential medicines, lack of medical supplies and equipment for operationalizing new health centres and creating service delivery effectiveness, (martinear, 2009; world health; 2005/2006 to 2009/2010).Department of international development, (2009) coins this point by arguing that millennium development goals (MDGS) have been adopted by 189 nations and signed by147 heads of state at the united nations summit in new York in 2000 to combat extreme poverty across the world but sub Saharan Africa and much of Asia were not on track to meet the set targets.Some studies carried out in Uganda after launching the decentralization policy in 1993 revealed that there was enhanced level of service delivery in districts, (Ministry of education and sports MOES, 2010) report for instance revealed that a number of primary schools benefited from classroom construction leading to reduced pupil teacher ratio, Similarly, the number of health units grew by 8% in 2006 (MOH, 2010).

Service delivery is a contemporary issue for most governments and researchers alike. Most scholars are in agreement that public service delivery is critical to ensuring the national welfare and stimulation of economic development. This is because often governments undertake a number of activities to provide citizens with services and at the same time guarantee that these services are provided in accordance with the service delivery requirements within the rule of law, (Mampe, 2012; Bola, 2011; Nandain, 2006; Kaunda 2005 and Shan 2005).

Government parastatal bodies are realizing that efficient service delivery improves value for money (Dugganetal, 2008). Accordingly, parastatal bodies must find ways of improving efficiency and effectiveness of service delivery.In public procurement, service delivery management is concerned with meeting fully the deliverables that were agreed upon in the contract, (Shah, 2005).This however requires supplier’s close monitoring by way of implementing contract management in line with the agreed upon deliverables set out in the contract. While the Clackmannanshire Council (2013) emphasizes the need for service delivery to be managed throughout the lifetime of the contract to ensure that goods/services are delivered in line with the performance or service level expectations as identified in the original contract.

Contract Management in public procurement has significant implications for service delivery (Olukaetal, 2014).He further believes that contract management offers an important framework for ensuring the success of any procurement undertaking for which service delivery is one of them. Aberdeen group (2006) found outthat inefficient management of supplier contracts and unclear policies and procedure can have significant impact on the enterprises and hurt service delivery of which some of these effects include cost over runs and exposure to risks for both parties in the contract.While Joshua et al, (2004) in a study comparing similarities and differences of key contracting components for city, state and federal governments of the united states of America, Found that for all government in the federal systems, the public management functions of contracting are remarkably similar, and the contract management and the achievement of accountability are weak links in the contracting process.Walton, 2009; Elsey, 2007, refer to Contract management as an aid to parties to a contract to meet their obligations in order to deliver the objectives required of the contract. Contract management, except the capacity toamend or terminate, shall pass from a procuring and disposal unit to a user department on award of contract (PPDA Act, 2003; PPDA Amendment Act, 2011) for management of service delivery.

Lynch, (2013) believes that Contract management in public procurement has been a neglected area. In Australia, the Australian Government Audit office report (2007) estimated about 30% of the audited contract management process, had irregularities and indicates that the deliverables specified in the statement of works had not been received, either in whole or in part. In Uganda Baseline Survey Report on Public Procurement Systems in Uganda (PPDAA, January 2010), there were significant variances between the actual and indicative time frames in contract completion. In addition, Sabiiti notes that the Government at times pays for no work done or very shoddy work and sometimes, contracts are not delivered on time which has affected the ability of the Government to deliver quality services to the general public (as cited in Rwothungeyo, 2013).Meanwhile the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Authority (PPDA) Audit reports of UNBS, (2009 and 2013) indicate high riskswith 27% and 19% in 2009 and 2013 respectively accruing from service delivery management where there were missing contract management records, delayed payment for received goods and services and delayed deliveries.

Although the UNBS strategic plan for 2010-2015 has put in place mechanisms for tracking and reporting procurement departmental work-plan activities whose key outputs are as a result of good service delivery through good contract management processes, service delivery is still not up to the UNBS stakeholder expectations and this is evident in the complaints of poor quality of products/services received, high cancellation of contracts, high priced goods/services, lack of delivery or partial delivery, delayed completion of contracts, missing contract management documents among others (Mubangizi, 2013).

1.2 Statement of the problem:

UNBS PDU annual report, (2012) indicates over 200 awarded procurement contracts in financial year 2011/2012 but the levels of service received/delivered on most of these procurements remain unknown. Mubangizi (2013) reported high complaints of poor quality products/services delivered with30% contracts cancelled, 5% of contracts either not delivered at all or received in part, 10% deliveries made over the stipulated delivery period and 60% of the contracts performed paid after 30days stipulated payment period, high priced goods/servicesand missing contract management documents among other issues. The persistent high complaints in service delivery in UNBS warrant examining the influence contract management on service delivery.

1.3 Purpose of the study

The purpose of the study is to examine the influence of Contract management on Service delivery in UNBS

1.4 Objectives of the study:

To establish a relationship between contract management and service delivery.
To establish other factors that may influence service delivery in parastatal bodies.

To suggest recommendations for service delivery improvements in UNBS.

1.5 Research Questions:

What is the relationship between contract management and service delivery?
What are the other factors that may influence service delivery in parastatal bodies?

Are there recommendations for service delivery improvements in UNBS?

1.6 SCOPE OF THE STUDY