Determining The Participation of The Special Groups in Public Procurement Opportunities in Tanzania

Abstract

This study assessed the involvements of special groups within the public procurement opportunities in Tanzania. A judgemental sampling technique was used to select respondents from 123 respondents. Of these, 110 responded to the questionnaire whereby, 94 special groups and 16 procuring entities in Morogoro region responded to the shared sets of the questionnaire. Data were collected and analysed through chi-square and descriptive statistics. Findings show that special groups are conscious of the prevailing procurement opportunities to a moderate extent. Despite being aware to a moderate extent study, however, reveals really low awareness of the 30% reservation schemes. Also, the study showed that there is a statistical relationship between accessibility to the procurement opportunities and the participation in the procurement opportunities by special groups, p-value =0.012< 0.05. However, despite having a statistical relationship yet the study revealed that special groups face difficulties in accessing procurement opportunities, which contributed highly by the character of their business and registration requirements.  30% reservation for special groups was moderately implemented by the majority of PEs, PEs claims that the non-participations by the special groups are due to; Perceptions of not winning, Social inferiority syndrome, Bureaucracy on the registration process, Lack of organization among special groups owned firms and Financial incapability. The study recommended that there is a need for the policy maker to provide a means of disseminating information for the special groups’ participation in the public procurement opportunities as well as training to procuring entities on the implementations of the procurement reservation schemes. The discoveries of this study should be important to the legislators in Tanzania to establish more improvements in the participation of special groups in public procurements opportunities.