Abstract:
The nature of contemporary economy has shifted the battlefield from the traditional
individualized performance of companies to what has been termed as the Supply Chain
Performance. Supply chain has been potentially identified as one of the key item that
can significantly improve a company efficiency hence reducing the costs. The main
objective of this study was to establish the effect of procurement practices on
performance of supply chain in public sector guided by the following specific variables;
to establish the effects of e-procurement on supply chain performance; to establish the
effect of staff competency on supply chain performance; to examine the effect of green
purchasing on the supply chain performance and to examine the effect of buyer-supplier
relationship on supply chain performance at Agriculture and food authority (AFA). The
study employed a descriptive research design. The target population for the study was
503 employees in all AFA Directorates. The study employed the use of stratified
sampling to select respondents and then employed the use of simple random sampling
to select the employees in the various departments. The sample size selected for the
study was 151 respondents. The study used questionnaires as the instrument for data
collection. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics such as mean, percentages and
standard deviation and inferential statistics such as correlation, analysis of variance and
Multiple Regression Analysis (MRA). The study established that E-Procurement had a
significant effect on supply chain performance (β 1 = 0.264, p = 0.03); Staff competency
had a significant effect on supply chain performance (β 2 = 0.290, p = 0.03); Green
purchasing had a significant effect on supply chain performance (β 3 = 0.294, p = 0.04);
and Buyer-Supplier relationship had a significant effect on supply chain performance
(β 4 = 0.289, p = 0.03). The study concluded that e-procurement, Staff Competence,
Green Purchasing and Buyer-Supplier Relationship are critical determinants on Supply
Chain Performance and therefore firms should pay attention to these procurement
practices if they hope to boost the performance of their supply chains. A similar study
may be carried out in Private as well as other Public institutions. The study recommends
that the government should encourage public organizations to fully adopt procurement
practices that add value to supply chain among them the specific variables examined
under this study. Further the government should also put in resources for further
research to find out other variables that positively impacts on performance of supply
chain
