Rules, Contracts, or Buyers? The Determinants of Procurement Method Choice in Kenya

Who determines how governments buy? Using 14,181 Kenyan contract awards from the World Bank's ProACT database, we estimate multinomial logit models of procurement method choice with product market and year fixed effects and buyer-clustered inference. Contract value dominates: each log point raises the probability of open tendering by 9.8 percentage points, requests for quotations nearly vanish above KES 5 million, and quotation contracts bunch just below round value cutoffs. Services raise the probability of direct procurement by 7.2 points. Yet the identity of the buying entity explains as much variation in method choice as all contract characteristics combined, and ten entities account for 70 percent of direct awards and 94 percent of their value. Direct procurement rose in 2020. Process indicators often used as predictors are consequences of method choice and are misread in the source documentation. Oversight of discretionary procedures should target buyers, not only contract types.