Procurement related risks in the Gauteng public sector

The aim of the study was to investigate the risks in procurement within the public sector. The study first identified the risks related to procurement, then distributed the questionnaires with 25 respondents by the employees within the public sector. Although the literature review highlighted that corruption was perceived as one of the biggest risks in procurement, all the questions relating to corruption had to be omitted from the questionnaire to prevent political distortion and fear that the respondents will not respond to the questions objectively. It is common knowledge that corruption in the form of collusion in the public sector procurement is widely affecting the ethical way of contracting for goods and services. It was found that current mitigation strategies were unable to prevent future mitigation strategies. The introduction of ethics training could provide positive results in terms of mitigating the procurement risks as employees would be sensitized to what constitutes unethical behaviour in a procurement environment. The procurement officers must take part in continuous professional development regarding proper procurement practices including ethics and values.