Improving Zimbabwe’s Public Procurement - Priority for Harare by PhD Graduate

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Challenges of poor service delivery coupled with severe economic hardships facing public procurement in his home country of Zimbabwe motivated doctoral graduate, Dr Abel Dzuke to choose this area as his research interest.

‘I have been working in this field since 2000 and have grown to be very passionate and fell in love with it since then. The need to fight for the procurement profession to be granted the respect it deserves as a strategic function in an organisation continues to motivate me even more and this can only be possible through having procurement knowledge qualifications of this high magnitude,’ said Dzuke.

Through his thesis titled: “Public Procurement: Pancea or Fallacy-A Case of Public Service Delivery in Zimbabwe”, Dzuke will enhance his knowledge as a procurement practitioner operating within the government system which is crucial for service delivery.

‘Service delivery is a critical requirement in the public sector and the importance of public procurement to that effect cannot be over emphasised. Given that public procurement constitutes the largest chunk of government expenditure, the critical impact of this research on the society is well amplified. Taxpayers monies are supposed to be spent with a “handle with care” mentality where public procurement practitioners are under an “eagle eye” view by the taxpayers, hence a clear manifestation of the societal impact of this kind of research,’ he said.

Thandiwe Jumo