Effect Of Public Procurement Practices on Performance of Construction Projects in Counties of The Lake Region Economic Bloc, Kenya.

Procurement Laws and Regulations 2015 are a yard stick that directs how buying of goods, services, and works by governments and state-owned businesses should be conducted (Thiankolu, 2019). However, there exists an absence of compliance to these Laws as envisaged by its framers which results to bias and uncompetitive bidding, evaluation and award of contracts process something that compromises the effectiveness of the project's accomplishment (Kagume & Wamalwa, 2018). The primary objective relating to this research entailed investigating the effect of public procurement practices on the performance of construction projects in Kenya. The specific objectives included: establishing the effect of supplier appraisal on performance of construction projects of counties in Lake Region Economic Bloc; determining the effect of contract management on performance of construction projects of counties in Lake Region Economic Bloc; accessing the effect of E-procurement on performance of construction projects of counties in Lake Region Economic Bloc; and investigating the effect of procurement planning on performance of Construction projects of Counties in Lake Region Economic Bloc.The target population was the 47county governments in Kenya. An explanatory research design was adopted for this study with a stratified random sampling technique being used to select 342 individuals who comprised of finance and procurement officers drawn from fourteen counties in the LREB region. A survey instrument was utilized for gathering data, using closed-ended questions. The survey instrument was piloted in Marsabit County. It was conducted to ensure that the instrument is both valid and reliable. SPSS was used to perform analysis of data. The use of multiple regression and ANOVA tests was employed to examine the research's hypothesis for rejection or failure to reject. Supplier Appraisal, Contract Management, E-procurement and Procurement Planning were all found to have significant association with the performance of construction projects in the entire LREB devolved units with Electronic procurement being the most significant out of the four predictor variables. A majority of those surveyed acknowledged that there is full investigation of technically complex design of all design proposals, they also asserted that conflict resolution procedure selected affects how soon projects are finished. In addition a majority also agreed that inviting tenders via electronic channels allows the involvement of a large pool of tenderers thus promoting competition and finally they agreed that quality specifications ensures that goods purchased satisfy the necessary needed requirements. The study recommended that national policies on contract management be brought into better alignment with the needs of the County, investment in IT infrastructure by the county governments since it was critical towards enhancing efficiency of completion of construction projects and that the devolved units should ensure proper and timely preparation of procurement plans in order to inform the budget preparation process.