Public Procurement Practices and Financial Accountability in the Public Sector

This study investigates the efficiency and the economic impact of the Public Procurement practices to establish an empirical argument to support the extent to which it has affected financial accountability. Specifically, the study investigates the impact of public procurement procedures on financial transparency in tertiary institutions in Southwest, Nigeria, and determines the significant difference between the procurement procedures of Public Universities, Polytechnics, and Colleges of Education in Southwest, Nigeria. The study adopted a descriptive research design of a survey type. The study covered 803 procurement-related officers in the Audit and Bursary departments of the selected. Data collected were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. From the analysis carried out, it was discovered that public procurement practice has a positive but non-significant impact on financial accountability of public tertiary institutions in Southwest, Nigeria, to the tune of 0.076(p-0.062>0.05). The ANOVA result unveiled that there is a significant difference between the procurement procedures of public universities, polytechnics, and colleges of education in Southwest, Nigeria, based on the F-statistic given to be 14.06 and the p-value given to be 0.000 < 0.005. Hence, it was concluded that there is a statistically non-significant impact of public procurement practices on the financial accountability of public tertiary institutions in Southwest Nigeria.