COMPARING LEVELS OF COMPLIANCE WITH PUBLIC PROCUREMENT ACT, 2007 IN PROJECT DELIVERY BETWEEN FEDERAL AND STATE TERTIARY INSTITUTIONS IN SOUTHWEST, NIGERIA

Public Procurement in Nigeria is governed by Public Procurement Act, (PPA) 2007. State Public entities do not consider it obligatory to comply with the Act, being an Act of Federal Parliament with State Governments being autonomous and having their own Parliaments. This study investigates the levels of compliance (LOC) with the Act by Federal and State Tertiary Institutions (PTIs) in Southwest, Nigeria. The objectives are to evaluate and compare the LOC with the Act by the two categories of PTIs. A questionnaire survey approach covering the entire 44 PTIs in Southwest, Nigeria was adopted. Data collected were analysed using mean and t-test. The result reveals that the two categories of institutions did not comply with one provision of the Act while they recorded same levels of compliance in another two provisions, however Federal PTIs complied more than State PTIs in the remaining provisions. The result of test of research hypothesis revealed that the difference in the compliance levels by the two categories differ significantly only in one provision of the Act. It is therefore concluded that Federal PTIs did not perform better and that compliance with the Act by the two categories of PTIs is the same.