Investigation Into The Factors Influencing Tendering Duration Stipulations By Public Building Clients In Nigeria.

Abstract

The study intensively examines those critical factors that Public building clients in Nigeria often take into consideration before allotting time frame for contractors to submit their tenders. To achieve this, a number of factors were first obtained via oral interviews with public building clients-ministries, parastatals, agencies and their professional consultants, then formally presented to 45 respondents all involved in the Nigerian public tendering process to be ranked. As such, the rank order of importance and percentage rating were obtained for each factor. The study observed that seven factors, namely: delays in annual national budget approval, Bill of quantities structure, project complexity, foreign procurement, adequacy of tender documents, reduction in number of tenderers and additional revenue all influenced the decisions of public clients with respect to time granted for receipt of bids. The ranking exercise revealed that delays in the approval of federation budget came topmost with a rating of 84.9%, while reduction in number of tenderers came least with a 46.7% rating. Consequently, the study was inclined to conclude that these vital areas call for close attention, if tendering duration is to be sufficiently managed in order to reduce the negative impact of such factors on the quality of tendering practice in the country and improve success and transparency of public building procurement. The study thus recommended that there must be a political will on the part of the presidency and legislature to secure timely budget approvals to reduce pressure on procuring entities to observe standard procurement benchmarks and for an attitudinal and professional change on the part of tendering professionals, to observe better pre-contract planning techniques to justify huge resources spent from Government coffers for building projects.