International Journal of Small Economies

Public sector procurement is governed by laws and regulations enforcing a rigid structure with multiple criteria for assessing and selecting suppliers. This paper analyses legal and operational requirements of public sector e-procurement of the Maldives. The research was based on a desktop review of traditional academic sources as well as gray literature to identify legal and fiscal constraints and regulations, followed by an evaluation study that applied the findings of the previous study in selecting an appropriate Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) method for that specific context. For the purpose of this comparison and selection the paper grouped MCDA methods into five categories; linear weighting methods, single synthesising criterion or utility theory, outranking methods, fuzzy methods and mixed methods. More than 80 MCDA methods were grouped under these major categories and considered as potential candidates to support e-procurement for the Maldives. After a thorough analysis two methods – TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution) and COPRAS (COmplex PRoportional Assessment) – emerged as applicable for the Maldivian context and capable of meeting both operational and legal constraints. The paper provides an extensive discussion justifying this choice, as well as rationale for the rejection of the other major candidate MCDA methods.