Procurement and Budget Utilization Challenges: The Case of Public Universities in Amhara Regional States, Ethiopia

This study reports on challenges experienced in the field of procurement and budget utilization in the one hand and strategies ways to improve procurement and budget utilizations on the other hand within the public universities which are found in Amhara Regional state, Ethiopia. This study used an exploratory research design. Purposive sampling and snowball sampling were used in this study. For the exploration, some of the key guiding questions of public procurement and budget utilization were raised for the staff and focal persons who are working in three universities in the aforementioned state. Regarding Budget utilization challenges, the following were identified: (1) lack of adequate and experienced budget experts; (2) there is poor market-oriented cost estimation practice; (3) there is no accountability in budget utilization; (4) lack of continual determination and report of budget balance in ach budget codes, and institutional regulation regarding Budget transfer; (5) delay in availability fund or delay of requested fund from ministry of finance and economic development. Ways to improve budget utilization are: (1) assuring the availability of budget before entering in to obligation; (2) by encompassing well planned budget transfer; (3) properly preparing budget request document to Ministry of finance and Economic cooperation. The study concludes by recommending concerned bodies to work on training employees, transparency, accountability, getting qualified staff and etc. Since respondents of this study came from three universities in Amhara Regional State, the results obtained may not be similar in other states in general and universities in particular.