An Evaluation on the Impact of Sustainability Practice in Public Procurement: A Case of the Sierra Leone AIrport Authority, Port Loko District North-West Region of Sierra Leone

This study assesses and evaluates the impact of sustainability practices in public procurement in the Sierra Leone Airport Authority Portloko district, North-West region of Sierra Leone. Evaluating sustainable procurement practices in public procurement is essential as sustainability is a discrete business activity that links the value chains for public procurement. The public procurement value chain environment has been subjected to various challenges, from purchasing decisions that are averse to humans to issues of climate change that impact procurement decisions. Furthermore, the principle of balancing the triple constraints (economic, social, and environmental) directly influences procurement decisions, especially within public procurement and value-for-money principles. The study employed a survey design because of its broad capability to solicit information from the respondents. Both primary and secondary data were used to collect data from the respondents. The primary data was collected using a questionnaire, which was captured using the Census and Survey Processing (CSPro) system and later exported to SPSS for more descriptive statistics. The finding reveals that in the case of repair and maintenance work, issues like rigorous quality and product life cycle need assessment, sustainability consideration in the procurement process, and sustainable reuse of garbage and debris are almost equally important (45%, 30%, 25%) according to respondents’ perceptions. So, respondents agreed upon the importance of sustainability in procurement. Nevertheless, on the other hand, 80% of respondents say that they are practicing the lowest quoted price criteria as a contract which may not cover sustainability issues effectively. Monitoring and Evaluation help improve performance and achieve results. More precisely, the overall purpose of procurement monitoring and evaluation is the measurement and assessment of compliance and performance in order to effectively manage the outcome and outputs known as development results. Performance is progress towards the achievement of desired results. Compliance is progress towards the achievement of procedures and processes that have been laid down. The need to demonstrate compliance and performance is placing higher demands on monitoring and evaluation in public procurements. Traditionally, monitoring and evaluation focused on assessing inputs and implementation processes. Today, the focus is on assessing the contributions of various factors to sustainability practice in public procurement. JEL: Q56, H57, M14, D61, L23, O22 Article visualizations: