Assessment of the Technical Preparedness of County Governments of Kenya in the Adoption of E- Procurement: A Case of Garissa County

The emergence of the internet has provided a platform that is enabling a new generation of business. It is changing the way business is done in every industry. The World Wide Web has become a source for information, goods and services. In effect, this has led to emergence of software systems. These systems are important because they provide information needed by organizations to be more effective, efficient and accurate as well as save on time and cost. The application of this systems range from allowing organizations to keep track of records and trends among others. Public Procurement and Disposal Act 2005 that saw the creation of Public Procurement Oversight Authority which bore the e-government strategy paper 2004.e -procurement was one of the medium term objectives which was to be implemented by June 2007. The government has however dragged the implementation largely due to the new political dispensation. E-procurement systems have proven benefits and its implementation is in line with the current times, the digital era. It was thus in order to establish preparedness of the county government created in the new dispensation. A survey research design was employed in this study. Procurement staff in Garissa County was the target population in this study. A research questionnaire was used for data collection .Both quantitative and qualitative methods of data analysis were used in this study. Data analysis was facilitated by Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) program version 20. The findings indicated that the county governments are prepared to adopt e-procurement. Given the age of the workforce which is young and dynamic and the availability of IT infrastructure, the adoption of e-procurement is likely going to be a success.