Innovative Tendering Practice: E - Tendering Applicability for the Procurement of Ethiopian Federal Road Construction Projects
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2021-08-01
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Construction procurement is considered to be one of the most critical stages
throughout the lifecycle of construction projects. However, bidding practice which is
one of the steps in procurement is identified as one of the major shortcomings of the
Ethiopian construction industry. The fact that the current Ethiopian construction
tendering practice is paper-based has several drawbacks like human errors in
document production, poor audit trail, access problems, security concerns,
insufficient copies, and time-consuming being the major ones.
This paper analyses the current practice of paper-based tendering in road
construction projects along with its challenges & how it can be improved via e-
tendering implementation. To answer these questions, the perception & experience
of tendering professionals involved in the road construction projects was assessed
via a questionnaire & interview survey. Few e-tendering practitioners were also
interviewed about their experience while implementing the system. Accordingly, the
result showed that e-tendering was perceived to be advantageous and would
improve the time, cost, communication, documentation, tender evaluation, resource
consumption, and transparency of the tendering process. However, the result also
revealed many factors related to management, organization, environment, &
technology that may hinder the implementation of the system. Thus, due to the
potential benefits of e-tendering highlighted in this paper, it requires more attention
from the government & the procuring entities for its greater expansion & adoption to
ultimately contribute to the growth of the country‟s economy. Accordingly, findings
from the literature review, survey, and document review were finally incorporated in
the conceptual framework developed for e-tendering implementation in the study
area. The framework was validated using a focus group discussion & a semi-
structured interview with tendering professionals engaged in the study area and
amendments were made accordingly. Its clarity, comprehensiveness, relevance,
simplicity, & future applicability was also assured via the questionnaires developed.
Description
Keywords
procurement, tendering, construction, e-tendering, road construction projects, e-procurement (EP)