A specialist in public procurement since 2011, El Hadji Malick CISSE started in verification and auditing at the Central Directorate of Public Procurement of Senegal. He is currently in charge of procurement and execution in projects financed by technical and financial partners in Senegal. He is also a lecturer in auditing and purchasing control.
He defended his Executive Doctorate of Business Administration (EDBA) in October 2025, on the theme “effect of lack of skills and risks on public procurement in the UEMOA zone: Case of Senegal” under the supervision of Professor Fatou Diop Sall Professor at Cheikh Anta Diop University (Dakar, Senegal).
Thesis Direction
Prof Diop Sall Fatou
Thesis Title
The impact of lack of expertise and risks on amendments and cancellations of public procurement contracts in the WAEMU zone: the case of Senegal
Abstract
It appears that a significant portion of budget allocations in the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) states is allocated to public procurement (OECD, 2021), particularly in Senegal, where its share is estimated at between 15 and 20% of gross domestic product (ARMP, 2017). However, increasing difficulties related to amendments and cancellations are significantly affecting the performance of public procurement, negatively impacting its economic efficiency (Samb, 2015). These difficulties increased by 15% for amendments and by more than 25% for cancellations in 2021 (DCMP, 2021). However, the reforms undertaken in the WAEMU area, particularly in Senegal, are guided by several reasons, including the performance of public procurement in the desire to be part of the new governance of public affairs due, among other things, to the intervention of several actors.
Our research, which has a purely managerial focus, seeks to first understand the causes and reasons for amendments and cancellations in public procurement, then their links with the lack of expertise of stakeholders and the risks associated with public procurement, and finally its performance management.
Much research has been done on amendments and cancellations in public procurement, but this has been approached “from a legal perspective” (Richard, 2015) or “from an economic perspective” (Morand, 2002).
The main objective of this research is to analyze the effect of stakeholders’ lack of expertise and risks on amendments and cancellations in public procurement in Senegal. To this end, it seeks to identify the causes and reasons for amendments and terminations in public procurement, the links between the lack of competence of actors and amendments and terminations related to public procurement and those between risks and amendments and terminations related to public procurement. Achieving these objectives will contribute to improving the governance of public procurement within the public administration in a southern country, particularly in Senegal.
The research is comprehensive, exploratory, and interpretative. The approach is purely qualitative and inductive. Data collection was conducted among public administration officials (managers) and stakeholders (controllers, regulators, suppliers). Data analysis and interpretation were performed using Sphinx software.
The research yielded the following results: (i) amendments and terminations are caused by factors internal and external to the stakeholders, which are interpreted as resulting from problems with stakeholder integration and the lack of a strategic managerial approach to project and risk management in public procurement; (ii) the lack of specific skills, such as the development of a code of ethics for public procurement stakeholders, and the lack of skills in strategic and operational planning of public procurement and financial management, increases ethical risks, financial risks, risks of undervaluation, and contextual risks; (iii) ethical risks, financial risks, undervaluation risks, and contextual risks have a direct impact on amendments and terminations, and on the occurrence of both amendments and terminations; (iv) the heterogeneity in the distribution of difficulties and attitudes toward the thesaurus themes “lack of competence” and “risks” informs the differentiated concerns of stakeholders due to their distinctive role in public procurement.
The recommendations are addressed to public administrations and their stakeholders, particularly the authority responsible for regulating public procurement, in order to improve the governance of public procurement. It can enable the structuring of public procurement and execution professions in order to equip the various stakeholders with specific skills related to purchasing activities, and also to the implementation of risk management in public procurement in Senegal. On a theoretical level, it makes a notable contribution to stakeholder theory in the context of public procurement in Senegal. The research identified the managerial aspects involved in the difficulties arising in public procurement in terms of amendments and terminations. It has limitations related to the sample size and the lack of rich research in this area. The creation of a sufficient database and studies on a strategy and action plan for stakeholder engagement in public procurement constitute interesting avenues of reflection