Abstract
The aim of the study was to investigate the risks in procurement within the public sector. The study first
identified the risks related to procurement, then distributed the questionnaires with 25 respondents by the
employees within the public sector. Although the literature review highlighted that corruption was
perceived as one of the biggest risks in procurement, all the questions relating to corruption had to be
omitted from the questionnaire to prevent political distortion and fear that the respondents will not
respond to the questions objectively. It is common knowledge that corruption in the form of collusion in
the public sector procurement is widely affecting the ethical way of contracting for goods and services. It
was found that current mitigation strategies were unable to prevent future mitigation strategies. The
introduction of ethics training could provide positive results in terms of mitigating the procurement risks
as employees would be sensitized to what constitutes unethical behaviour in a procurement environment.
The procurement officers must take part in continuous professional development regarding proper
procurement practices including ethics and values.