Thesis-2000-Al-Fares.pdf (9.42 MB)
Central tendering: an evaluation of the Kuwait experience
thesis
posted on 2010-12-02, 11:55 authored by Jamal Al-FaresIn 1964 the government of Kuwait established the Central Tenders Committee (CTC).
Its aims were fivefold:
1) to control the major areas of government spending on services and
development projects;
2) to reduce the expenses of government departments when buying from private
suppliers and to ensure the highest quality of provision;
3) to organise, standardise and unite all tendering procedures for all government
departments through the CTC;
4) to avoid breach of trust between government departments and employees;
5) to treat all contractors who tender with fairness and avoid favouritism
throughout the tender procedures.
The thesis evaluates the economic role of central tendering within a particular sociopolitical
context: that of Kuwait, and highlights the organisational nature of the slow
responding and highly bureaucratic CTC. The implications of this for a dynamic
business culture are stressed, and the differences between the CTC as formal model
and the reality are discussed.
Further attention is paid to the question of who benefits from this process of
tendering. It is clear that the impact on the state of this system is variable, despite the
initial hopes for the CTC, but there is no obvious pattern of advantage for particular
types of companies or countries.
A questionnaire was circulated to a sample of CTC employees, clients, customers, and
suppliers. Little has been attempted elsewhere to evaluate a CTC approach, leading to
a lack of information and research. It was hoped that by the tool of the questionnaire
method, light could be thrown on the relative advantagesa nd caseo f use of the CTC
mechanism.
The five fold aims of the CTC are recognised as being worthy and relevant, with
evidence that with some exceptions all are being met to a greater or lesser degree, but
that simplification of the procedures and a speeding up of the process would release
many more benefits.
History
School
- Business and Economics
Department
- Business
Publisher
© Jamal Al-FaresPublication date
2000Notes
A Doctoral Thesis. Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of Doctor of Philosophy of Loughborough University.EThOS Persistent ID
uk.bl.ethos.366567Language
- en