The corrupt procurement practices and their impact on service delivery in the ministry of health and child care: a case of Mashonaland central province, Zimbabwe

Abstract

The corrupt procurements practises and their impact on service delivery in the Ministry of Health and Child Care in Mashonaland Central Province was established in this current study using the Exploratory Factor Analysis. The study used three research objectives that sought to explore the corruption practices in procurement and their relative impact on service delivery in the public health procurement. The study went on further to determine whether there are any statistically significant differences from respondents of different gender and profession in public health institutions. Exploratory research design was used to establish the corrupt procurements practises and their impact on service delivery in the Ministry of Health and Child Care in Mashonaland Central Province together with the survey and quantitative data collection methods. A sample of two hundred and seventy five (275) employees in the Ministry of Health and Child Care in Mashonaland Central Province was used to establish the corrupt practices and their impact on service delivery. A total of 84.36% response rate was achieved in the study. The overwhelming response rate was a result of the self-distribution and use of district hospital administrators to reach out respondents in all the eight districts in the province. The results indicates that major corruption practices are happening in the public health procurement namely; Embezzlement; Bribery; Fraud; Cartelism; Nepotism; Facilitating payments and Forgery on poor service delivery. The study concluded that the most impacting corruption practices in the public health service delivery in their order are Nepotism, followed by bribery, then facilitating payments, Forgery comes on the forth position, then cartelism with embezzlement on the sixth place and lastly fraud on the seventh position. All the seven corruption practices are statistically significant and reliable. Moreover they explain 76.35% of variance in all the issues that causes poor service delivery in public health institutions under the Ministry of Health and Child Care. The study recommended that Ministry of Health and Child care should strengthen its public procurement processes in collaboration with the Procurement Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (PRAZ). There is need for regulated and updated regular prices for public procurement goods. All entities that are involved in health sector procurement using public funds should use these guides formulated by the MOCC and PRAZ.The Ministry of Health and Child Care should make efforts to collaborate with the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) so as to enhance the corruption reporting in districts and provinces.