Page 24 - Azerbaijan State University of Economics

THE JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC SCIENCES: THEORY AND PRACTICE, V.75, # 1, 2018, pp. 16-31

eco-friendly activities, boosting of industry innovation, and improvement of social
responsibility as demonstrated in Figure 1 of the ‘Appendix’ section of this paper.

Furthermore, an efficient public procurement (PP) process/system has several
distinctive characteristics. First of all, it seeks to achieve Value for Money (VfM) by
taking into account the entire life cost of a service, project, or product. Also, it
promotes competitiveness through its practices, policies, and regulations/laws.
Moreover, an efficient PP system encourages practices and methods essential for
delivery of quality services, works, and goods, and promptly. In other words, it is
time conscious and emphasises the quality of the end product, service, or work. In
addition to the characteristics mentioned above, an efficient PP process comprises
high equity standards. Explicitly, it adopts a system that ensures transparency and
fairness, which prohibits unlawful and unethical/immoral acts, for example,
corruption. Not to mention, an efficient PP system provides accountability. It is
assertive of proper record keeping and transparent review of the procedure. In the
same case, it emphasises on the essentiality of frequent audits of organisational units
involved in procurement. Also, an efficient PP system focuses on ensuring
uniformity in tendering process. Precisely, it emphasises on the use of standardised
documentation and implementation of similar public procurement regulations to all
organisational units. The consistency can be implemented in particular state, region,
or organisation. An efficient PP process also ensures that the tendering process is
done per the public procurement law and constitution of the respective state/country
or region. In other words, it ensures that procurement officers adhere all the
requirements of the tendering process and demonstrate acceptable
behaviour/morality. Finally, an efficient PP process boosts not only the quality but
also the number of services, works, and products delivered.

Additionally, in many instances, procurement officers engage in unlawful acts for
financial gains or due to nepotism. According to the OECD bribery report, public
procurement is a primary purpose of bribes as shown in Figure 2 in the ‘Appendix’
section of this paper (OECD, 2014). Besides, the urge for quick financial gains,
procurement officers also engage in corruptions due to nepotism. Precisely, while
procuring works, these officers give special treatment to their family members and
friends (Loughlin, 2017). In most cases, these special procedures usually comprise
disregard of the public procurement laws and lead to unfairness, conspiracy, and
fraud. To avoid, conflicts that may arise from such unlawful acts of nepotism and
bribery it is vital for the officials involved in tendering processes to adhere to the
requirements of the public procurement regulations. Precisely, the officers should
follow the put into practice the principles of the procurement code of conduct. These
principles comprise accountability, responsiveness, transparency, fairness,
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