The Kenya Institute of Supplies Management is decentralising its operations and services to empower members, mostly procurement officers.
KISM chairman John Karani said they are moving the services to regions and have established 10 chapters.
He said the main aim is to professionalise procurement and supply chain personnel and move their services closer to the people.
Karani spoke in Eldoret during the opening of the 10th KISM chapter to serve North Rift.
He was with institute CEO Kenneth Matiba and corporate services director Naomi Jelimo.
Karani said most institutions use 70 per cent of their budgets on procurement.
“That’s why we are devolving our operations so that through various programmes, we can ensure all our members are qualified, registered and bona fide,” he said.
Karani said although procurement officers were mostly blamed over corruption, they are just part of a chain of departments involved in the procurement process.
He said the process is not a one-man show and most of the things that go wrong are not entirely procurement-related, but are flaws caused by other user departments.
“Procurement officers just facilitate in the entire process but we are sensitising all the user departments to understand their roles and help eliminate the flaws,” Karani said.
He said KISM is keen to entrench professionalism and procurement is a science, a process and an art with regulations that must be followed.
KISM is a statutory organ created and registered through an Act of Parliament and it is a regulatory institution with mandate of training, registering, licensing, disciplining and regulating the supply chain management.
“No one is allowed to practice in the space of procurement and supply chain management without being registered by KISM and licensed to do so,” Matiba said.
Matiba said the institute has started enforcing compliance for employers to ensure those they hire are registered by KISM.
KISM has also enhanced its capacity to handle all matters related to professional misconduct.
Matiba said the sector faced challenges with a weak legal framework but this was being progressively addressed by relevant players.
