The procurement policies and procedures of the government are not flexible which makes them economically inefficient. Sometimes, this inflexibility becomes a barrier given the varied choices now made available to the market, difficulty in standardizing the specifications of materials to be procured, and the fragmented nature of the market. These guidelines are set to standardize procurement rules to eradicate bias and/or fault of human discretion, as well as corruption. The rigidity of these rules renders procurement officers vulnerable to administrative sanctions when one or two of these rules are violated. The rules do not allow negotiations for economically efficient alternatives. Thus, we end up having a scarcity of materials needed to run the government.

In health care, an inefficient procurement process leads to scarcity of essential medicines and equipment. This has direct effect on quality of patient care, and more importantly, on patient outcomes. Sometimes, there is limited attention to the quality of the procured materials which leads to further inefficiency in the provision of patient care. The current procurement process is reduced to a set of guidelines to be strictly followed, with little regard to economic efficiency. While the policy is aimed at reducing corruption, the current mechanism actually increases government wastage in terms of time, money, and procured materials of poor quality, all at the expense of quality patient care.