A Dissertation Submitted in Partial/Fulfillment of the Requirements for award of the Degree of Master of Science in Procurement and Supply Chain Management (MSc. PSCM) of Mzumbe University.The study focused on challenges in preparation and implementation of effective procurement plan, a case study of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism. The general objective of this research was to assess challenges in preparation and implementation of the Annual Procurement Plan, case study has been the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism Headquarters. The study was guided by the following research questions, Are all concerned parties to procurement activities involved in preparation and implementation of Annual Procurement Plan?, Does the plan accommodates and capture all requirements during preparation?, Are there any procurement strategies to ensure the effectiveness of the plan during implementation?, Does the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism adhere to the Annual Procurement Plan?. The study used such methods as interview, questionnaire, observation and documentary sources in collecting data to achieve the intended objectives. The researcher found out that, there is poor participation of concerned parties who are supposed to participate in preparation of annual procurement plan at the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, most of them are not familiar to the procurement plan, the task of preparing and controlling procurement plan is left to PMU only, also it was found that, the procurement plan does not capture all requirements, most of procurements are performed out of the plan and there is no effort to rectify the situation, which results the plan to differ with actual procurement performed, the researcher also found that the plans are incorporated in the budget but since the plans does not capture all requirements, the budget seen to be a major problem which influence most of activities, it was found that no any strategies or control mechanism to ensure the Ministry adhere to the annual procurement plans, the plan is prepared and left in shelves as a formalities not for implementation purpose. The conclusion and recommendations based on the information obtained from physical observation, questionnaires, interview and documentary sources.