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NewsDay

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Eliminate buyers in procurement fraud

Opinion & Analysis
Unaccountable buyers are into excuses, blaming others, putting things off, doing the minimum, acting confused and playing helpless.

Unaccountable buyers are into excuses, blaming others, putting things off, doing the minimum, acting confused and playing helpless. They pretend ignorance while hiding behind doors, computers, paperwork, jargon and other people. Due to their lack of responsibility and autonomy in the procurement decision-making process in most organisations, if things go wrong, they have obvious answers: “I was just following orders”; “I was not involved”, “nobody told me”; “it is not my job”, etc. Generally, unaccountable people are quick to complain that procurement decisions are coming from other functions and slow to act when they are required to make such decisions.

Opinion by  Nyasha Chizu

Naturally, people are interested in keeping their image intact, and to do so when things go wrong in procurement decision-making, buyers tend to rationalise their decisions. Rationalisation is done to devise a self-satisfying but incorrect reason for a particular behaviour. It is, therefore, crucial that in procurement decisions, buyers understand their reasons for preferring one action over another. This is important because only unless buyers understand their real reason, they will be content to rationalise their actions by using other means — most often adopting moral excuses or assigning blame to others.

It is a fact that when one has a good excuse, we tend not to hold them accountable. There are, however, good excuses and bad excuses. Among the excuses buyers tend to identify as legitimate are those most often associated with external factors and the dilution of responsibility, frequently as a result of organisational hierarchy. Ethical dilemma is, therefore, raised.

The ethical dilemma arises because an excuse is acknowledgement that wrong actions occurred but seeks to show that the buyer has little or no responsibility for the action. The most common excuse in procurement decisions is that “I was told to do so” or “I was simply following orders”. In other professions, incumbents are required to up hold a certain standard of performance and ethics to the extent that no one can push them to make decisions that they do not subscribe to.

Obedience to those considered senior by buyers in their organisations sometimes affects their professional judgment. Superiors end up making procurement decisions for buyers in organisations, relieving them of the related accountability and responsibility of procurement decisions made.

But how can the dilemma of immorality and shrugging of accountability and responsibility in procurement decision-making be eliminated. There is need to regulate the buyers so that they are professionally held accountable for procurement decisions.

Regulation of a buyer involves the definition of a buyer’s credentials, providing them with standard operating procedures and a code of ethics. Buyers will need to be issued with a licence to practice that can be withdrawn if their conduct is not consistent with the policies and principles of the profession.

Professionalising procurement is necessary because professionals commonly justify their actions by appeal to the requirements of their professional roles. This will imply that the buyer’s role will be to service their organisations to ensure uninterrupted flow of goods and services that are sourced efficiently and effectively. This will ultimately reduce bribery and corruption in procurement transactions.

Blind obedience will also be eliminated. Their job will be to serve their organisations’ wishes with all their professional expertise.

In the fight against white collar crimes, licensing of buyers is a significant move to eliminate the critical actor in such activities by imposing high penalties for immoral behaviour. Why is Zimbabwe taking its time to move this direction?

  • Nyasha Chizu is a Fellow of CIPS and the CIPS Zimbabwe branch chairman writing in his personal capacity. Feedback: [email protected]