EFFICIENCY EVALUATION OF THE PUBLIC E-PROCUREMENT SYSTEM IN THE REDUCTION OF CORRUPTION: THE ALBANIAN CASE.

ELEZI Ermal PhD Student European Univeristy of Tirana

HARIZAJ Miranda PhD Student University Polytechnic of Tirana

Keywords: Public Procurement, e-Procurement, Transparency;

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1. INTRODUCTION During the last years, several governments have introduced Public e-Procurement Systems to procure electronically the needs of the public administration. The primarily reason behind this are, similar to the private sector, cost efficiency and process management improvement (Croom and Brandon-Jones, 2005; Barbieri and Zanoni, 2005; Singer et al., 2009). However, in contrast with the business organisations, the adoption of e-Procurement systems by the governments is more influenced by political and institutional commitments (Moe, 2004). These commitments become a necessity for the system development in countries where strong decentralization processes are part of the public administration (Henriksen et al., 2004). For this particular type of governance different studies have suggested that the real challenge of the Public e-Procurement is not technical but managerial (Moon, 2005; Ramanathan and Somasundaram, 2004). These organisational difficulties become even more evident when change issues are considered (Williams and Hardy, 2005; Mitchell, 2000) or when work improvement is analysed (Henriksen et al., 2003; Panayiotou et al., 2004). Despite these issues and the fact that the resistance to change is relevantly present in the adoption of the Public e-Procurement (Chu et al., 2004), there are important signs of increased usability of these systems (Dooley et al., 2006). One of the major factors that drive this growing trend is the political commitment by many governments to increase public procurement transparency (Directive 2004/18/EC of the European Parliament, 2004). EProcurement realizes this pledge process through the efficient publication and dissemination of information which also facilitates the implementation of the anti-corruption policies (Carayannisa and Popescu., 2005). Principally for this last reason, the Government of Albania launched the Public E-Procurement System which is a web-based application that enables the electronic management of the public procurement procedures in the country. The system is managed by the Public Procurement Agency and can be accessed by PPAs web -page www.app.gov.al. Albania became one of the first countries in the World to introduce in 2009 a 100% electronic procurement system for all public sector tenders above the threshold of 3,500 Euro (European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, 2010). However in spite of this indisputable achievement, the country is still facing critical corruption problems. In the 2010 Corruption Perceptions Index, issued by Transparency International (2010), Albania is ranked 87th. Moreover, according to the European Commission Opinion on Albania's application for membership of the European Union (2010) issued on November 9th 2010,
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public procurement is still a major issue in the country because bribery is still diffused. The main causes, as are detailed in the document, are the lack of effective implementation of the legal and institutional framework. For the e-Procurement implementation challenges has been suggested that is appropriate to map the Critical Success Factors in order to create a positive impact in the public sector with the adaption of the system (Vaidya et al., 2006). Furthermore, Vaidya et al. (2006) explains that the implementation perspectives and outcomes can be mapped through a research model of e-Procurement CSFs, consequently facilitate the achievement of the goals. However, this study considers the creation of frameworks and their implementation from the top-down perspective. Nevertheless, for the public e-Procurement is rather needed to transfer knowledge from experience into policy and practices (Hardy and Williams., 2008). Therefore, the public e-Procurement system should be oriented to match the strategic goals issued by the legal frameworks and political decisions but applied in a bottom-up user approach. In spite of the fact that the theories presented above provide notional insights to increase and improve the implementation of e-Procurement, still is not analysed and evaluated how effectively this system contributes to the reduction of corruption. Therefore this study has the intention to addressing the efficiency of the eProcurement from an anti-corruption perspective. This can be helpful to produce proper critical outcomes and suitable evaluations of the IT/IS as transparency enablers.

2. THE ALBANIAN FRAMEWORK The public procurement in Albania is based on a set of legal documents which are laws, bylaws, decisions of the Council of Minister, regulations and guidelines. The most important of these documents is the Law on Public Procurement, No. 9643 dated 20.11.2006 (2006). The objectives of the law are: to promote efficiency and efficacy in public procurement, to reduce costs, to encourage competition, to guarantee equal opportunities and treatment. Moreover it has the goal to guarantee integrity, public trust and transparency in public procurement procedures. Since 2006 the law has been amended four times with Law No. 9800 date 10.07.2007, Law No. 9855 date 26.12.2007, Law No. 10 170 date 22.10.2009 and Law No.10 309 date 22.07.2010. These frequent modifications were necessary due to the establishment and development of the new Electronic Procurement System. However, the objectives of the law remained untouched. This is because of the Albanian EU access goal and requirements. The Albanian law on public procurement is aligned with the EU Directive 2005/18/CE of the European Parliament and Council of 31st March 2004 to coordinate
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awarding procedures for public work, goods and services contracts (2004). Therefore, the factors of efficiency, efficacy, equality, integrity, trust and transparency are always present but the means to reach these goals have changed during the last years. The public e-procurement system was introduced in Albania in May 2008 with the first procedure concluded in 20.05.2008 form a central government agency. However, this was not the first real launch of the e-procurement in Albania. The development of the e-procurement system took some years and was developed through project steps. The very first one was during 2007 when only the documents and information were made publically available through the official web page of the Agency of Public Procurement, which is the institution responsible for the management of the e-procurement system. After this phase, the actual system was introduced where the Economic Operators (EO) can view the documents submitted by the Contracting Authority (CA) on a tender and can send their offers. The functions and rules of the e-procurement system are defined in articles 36 and 37 of the Law on Public Procurement (2010). However, there are some points in article 36 as the requirement for electronic signature which has yet to be applied from the system. This is because, as of now, the e-procurement system allows the processes of CA information publishing on a tender, documents downloading, EO offering and CA awarding decisions. As mentioned above, the Public Procurement Agency (PPA) is the institutional body which is in charge for the management of the e-procurement system. This system was developed during 2007 with the assistance of international donors such as USAID, EBRD etc. The system was further improved during 2008 and 2009 with new features by an international company with the partnership of a local one. Nowadays, PPA is tendering to contract a company for the system maintenance. After a successful tender during May 2008, the Albanian Prime Minister decided that every tender above the threshold of 3,000 Euros should be carried out online with the newly developed system. The beginning, as expected, was difficult, however in less than 2 years the system became fully operational and available for every public institution. This achievement was also recognised by the United Nations which awarded in 2010 the PPA with the 2nd place winner in public services (PPA, 2010). This certificate was given in recognition of the contribution towards transparency, accountability and responsiveness in public services. This is because the information about every tendering procedure was published on the global web allowing new companies to bid. The number of EO participants increased from the average 3 during 2007 to 8 during 2011. According to the Annual Reports (2008; 2009; 2010; 2011) published from the PPA the e-procurement system allowed to save more than 100 million Euros since
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its introduction. The e-procurement system is now largely used with users spending around 81 days per year. The system registers more than 250,000 EO users spread worldwide and all Albanian public institutions registered as CA users. Along with the increase of EO participation also the number of complaints has increased significantly. The PPA, during 2008-2009, was also accountable for complaints. However, since 2010 with the establishment of the Public Procurement Commission (PPC), the PPA has not the target to review complaints. It is interesting to notice from the official Annual Reports of both PPA (2008; 2009) and PPC (2010; 2011) that each year around 50% of complaints are not accepted as invalid due to the lack of legal support. This shift of duty regarding complaints processing from PPA to PPC was not easy and still presents problems. Both parts in their respective Annual Reports (PPA, 2011; PPC, 2011) accusing the counterpart of difficult cooperation and legal power excess. The Public Procurement Commission is a collegial body established to mainly protect Economic Operators rights and equal treatments. The treatment of complaints if accepted ends with the PPC decisions. Every EO has to pay a fee for the complaint review which is valued 0,5% the value of the public procurement procedure complained. However, many of the EOs challenge these decisions and appeal the case to court (PPC, 2011). According to the PPC annual reports (2010; 2011) many EO fail to comply with the Public Procurement Law especially because of incorrect cost estimates and inaccurate legal documents. This last problem is also formulated for the Contracting Authorities and the Public Procurement Agency itself. The role of the PPC in the e-procurement platform appears to be as system auditors; however there is no suggestion about problems or improvements. The PPC is not the only institution dealing with complaints. The Procurement Advocate is also a public authority in Albania which has the goal to safeguard the interests of the Economic Operators. The PA is independent body appointed by the parliament with a five year term. However, contrary to PPC, its decision are not obligatory but are only issued as recommendations. According to the Annual Reports issued by the PA (2009; 2010; 2011), some of the Contracting Authorities fail to implement legal standards and are keen to irregular behaviour. These are elements such as discriminatory technical specifications, shortage in documents, failure to comply with legal deadlines, improper definition of qualification criteria and awarding. Moreover, the PA claims that there are some necessary improvements to be introduced to the e-procurement system as the automatic calculation of time procurement deadlines and the re-evaluation of bids. Moreover, the PA asserts in its reports that the collaboration with the PPA is not successful while with the PPC institutional
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relations do not even exist at all. The PA also sustains concerns regarding the behaviour of the Contracting Authorities and the role of the PPA. For example, sometimes CA sings contracts even when the procedures is suspended or cancelled and they intentionally break the Public Procurement Law. On the other hand, PPA fails to develop similar document standards (PA, 2010) and to guarantee sufficient e-procurement system training for the users (PA, 2011). The CA does not have professional employees for the procurement procedures. According also to the European Commission (2010; 2011) the problems of remedies and capacity building still need to be addressed in the public procurement area. Most of public procurement procedures of the Prime Ministry, Ministries and depending institutions has been centralised since 2009 and carried out by a department in the Ministry of Internal Affairs. According to the Guideline No.1, date 06.02.2009 this was primarily done to minimise bribery and cut costs.

3. THE TRANSPARENCY FACTORS Political corruption and bribery behaviour is a problem of justice. Therefore, law enforcement seems to be the winning factor also when using e-procurement systems (Rijckeghem and Weder, 2001). The adoption of the e-procurement in the public sector must operate within the legal framework and this can be achieved only through incremental change (Panayiotou et al., 2004). This is because it is difficult for laws to keep up with technology improvements and radical change. However, change is inter-related to the environment configured to be applied. In a similar way, anti-corruption efforts are indivisible from the political environment (Brown and Cloke, 2005). This means that even e-procurement systems depend on political economy contexts (Hardy and Williams, 2008). Grodeland and Aseland (2011) have suggested that in post-communist state countries there is a large use of informal practices because citizens do not trust that their problems can be solved formally. This attitude is also applicable to Albania as a post-communist country which is still under political transition. Albania is one of the most corrupted countries in Europe and transparency challenges still need to be addressed. There are direct factors and peripheral elements that can enforce and promote transparency. According to Smith (2010) lack of meritocracy in the public administration and strong political connections are sources of law evasion and consequently corruption. Abbink (2004) suggests that these issues can be solved through staff rotation in the public administration. On the other hand, this practice can have negative consequences on the civil servants image and expertise.
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Accountability seems also to be a crucial factor for the transparency enforcement and the reduction of corruption (Wong, 2009). In order to identify clearly the accountable actors in the e-procurement process, Gunesekaran and Ngai (2008) have suggested that centralised control management can be an answer. They also sustain that with less contact points communication among actors can be facilitated. The collaboration and coordination in the public e-procurement between public (CA) and private (EO) seems very complicated (Bagchi et al., 2011; Essig and Batron, 2005). In a certain way, minimum contact between CA and EO diminishes the chances of irregular behaviour. However, the lack of collaboration increases between these actors increases procedural costs (Hoppe et al., 2011; Huang et al., 2011). Moreover, it is not clear if formal collaboration is not practiced also informal are not performed. Therefore, fair communication and collaboration remains a key-enabler towards transparency in the e-procurement system (Walker and Brammer, 2012). Information accuracy is also a cornerstone to the success of the e-procurement system. Managing public procurement contracts is very difficult (Grilo and Jardim-Gonclaves, 2011). Therefore, quality should not only be a feature of information (Vagstad, 1995) but of the entire public procurement processes (Chen et al., 2011). The real-time availability of information increases visibility so transparency (Ozbilgin and Imamoglu, 2011). Nevertheless, e-procurement attributes of transparency and visibility promote efficiency and price reductions (Aliza et al., 2011; Croom and Brandon-Jones, 2007). It is interesting to notice that anti-corruption behaviours are inherent to efficient and valuable administration. On the other hand, price competition can lead to agreements between bidders (Padhi and Mohapatra, 2011) that can affect cost savings of the Contracting Authority itself. In terms of free market competition experience, the foreign companies seem to manage public procurement easier than the local Albanian firms (PPA, 2010). This conclusion suggests that is necessary to protect domestic Economic Operators (McGowan,). However, Long and Stahler (2009) observe that if foreign companies are more productive than local ones it is necessary to liberalise the public procurement tenders. Moreover, the treatment reserved even to domestic companies is different on basis of size and type (Mougeot and Naegelen, 2005). This is because big companies manage procurement processes efficiently. Conversely, small medium enterprises find it very difficult to use e-procurement systems because of the lack of familiarity and most probably of shortcomings in terms of legal and IT expertise (Gunesekaran et al., 2009; Karjalainen and Kemppainen, 2008). Therefore, in the case of e-procurement emerges the importance of constant training (Liao et al., 2002) as an element to guarantee equal treatment of Economic Operators.
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The need for continuous audit of the e-procurement system is necessary (Concha et al., 2012). This is because the use of the e-procurement systems should guarantee strict security and data protection (Lengwiler and Wolfsetter, 2010). All these elements contribute to trust, transparency and therefore anti-corruption minimisation. According to Yu et al. (2008) lowerror e-procurement system is the mean that can bring cost and time efficiency along with transparency to the public procurement. He also recognizes that ethical issues are inbuilt in the public procurement process. However, these ethical problems can be reduced through qualitative mechanisms of security and traceability. Ronchi et al. (2010) have mapped some of the relevant factors that influence the success of e-procurement systems. These factors are industrial sector (environment), company size, efficiency, transparency and control. However, as identified above, other elements such as quality, trust, technical capacity, training, security and data protection should also be considered when expecting an e-procurement system to reduce political corruption.

4. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY The overall aim of the research is to critically analyse the efficiency of the Albanian eProcurement System in the reduction of corruption in the public procurement practices. The objectives are related to the assessment of the e-Procurement system as a contributor of transparency and accountability to the public procurement procedures. The main objectives are: To identify potential grey areas where there are gaps between the use of the eProcurement system and public procurement processes not supported electronically. To evaluate the bidding process from the point of view of the firms perception based on the access of information and data exchange quality. To assess the e-Procurement system performance from the IT/IS integrity and accountability perspective. To find eventual lack of law implementation and anti-corruption behaviour by the electronic system. To discover possible model and practices that can improve the system.

All the objectives are strongly interrelated because the public procurement process is based on multi-scale decision making. Therefore it is expected to produce outcomes that will illustrate the phenomenon of bribery which can potentially affect the public procurement on all these levels.
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Most of the research studies in the field of public e-Procurement are empirical based (Kassim and Hussin, 2010). This can be as a result of the specific need to validate theories or to create tested models. Following this same stripe, the research project will make an attempt to provide evidence about the efficiency of e-Procurement systems to lessen bribery. Despite the well built confidence that e-Government can promote anti-corruption and accountability (Kim et al. 2009), the research project will in addition take into account that reverse causalities can occur (Lio et al., 2011). Since e-Procurement systems are relatively complex, due to the inter-organizational characteristics but also because of the multi-scale decision making features, the project will use different research methodologies to accomplish a more comprehensive answer to the question. Oates (2006) sustains that the data researches are related to the research aim, focus and context. Therefore, we reviewed the context in the section 2 and 3 that can favour the fieldwork but also to consider the lack of previous academic studies in this area. Moreover, in section 3 about the Transparency factors we identified several elements that directly influence and have a positive impact on e-procurement transparency and anti-corruption. The

appropriate methodology to test theories and evaluate results is to perform a quantitative research (Bryman and Bell, 2008; Eisenhardt, 1989). In order to assess these key-factors in the Albanian context, a survey as a quantities research was chosen. The questionnaire of the survey was built upon the key transparency factors acknowledged in the previous section. Therefore, elements such as sector of activity, company size, capacity, training, information quality, traceability, efficiency, security, data protection, collaboration and communication were transformed in questions as a method of scrutiny. On the other hand, the survey can help to map and answer the first three objectives of the research (partially also the fourth). This is because the fourth and fifth objectives are more related with organisational behaviour where quantitative research is not appropriate. The literature suggests that qualitative research is the best methodology to get a get a deep understanding of organisational matters and to assess cultural circumstances (Bryman and Bell, 2007; Denzin and Lincoln, 2003; Walsham, 1995). Therefore in order to complete the framework of analysis, qualitative research data were also collected through semi-structured interviews.

4.1. SURVEY A survey was be prepared and distributed to around 800 national and international business companies who have used the e-procurement system provided by the Public
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Procurement Agency. The survey was a questionnaire of around 20 questions. About 10 of these questions will be specific to the corruption issue and its perception in relation to the system. The other 10 will be used as an introduction to the theme with a focus on trust and quality of the e-Procurement system. Since the companies chosen were expected to be internet users, the survey was web-based and accessible through a url link which was sent to each user via e-mail. Most of the questions, especially for the perception and evaluation topics, was formulated using a Likert scale. After 2 weeks a new e-mail was sent to those companies who havent responded to the questionnaire. The survey collected quantitative data in order to produce indicators related to the perception of the users from the bidders perspective. The goal was to recognize gaps in the process and system inefficiencies. The opinions were formally illustrated the frequency and the methods of direct contact between the bidders and the public procurement operators. Pilot Survey Before sending the invitations to the participants a pilot survey was launched. The pilot survey was done with 10 companies who have used the e-procurement system. The pilot participants were kindly asked to provide feedback for each question, if any, and a final for the whole questionnaire. After receiving the feedback, some changes have been made in the content. One question was interpreted as having ambiguous words and could have been interpreted as a double-barrelled question. Moreover, it was suggested to simplify the language and keep the questions as short as possible.

4.2. INTERVIEWS Semi-structured interviews were carried out with the public officials which are primarily actors in the employment of the public e-procurement system. The intent is to make a formative and summative evaluation of the e-Procurement System. The formative evaluation assessed the technical performance of the system in terms of accountability, reliability, availability security and integrity. The summative evaluation considered the compliance of the e-Procurement solution with the legal framework requirements and system usability with regards to a similar previous study (Saso et al., 2009). Two of the interview participants were from the Public Procurement Agency which is the system owner and administrator, while the other two will be employees from the Public Procurement Commission which deals with the reviews and complaints. Other three interviews were carried out with officials of the General

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Directory of the Centralised Procurement in the Ministry of Interior who act as main Contracting Authority for the Council of Ministers, Ministries and Central Agencies. PPA Director the interview will be broad and try to emphasize the external relations of the institution with other state authorities (Court, Prosecutors Office etc.) and try to understand the impact of the e-Procurement system in cases of corruption. For the other PPA officials the topics will be concentrated on the e-Procurement system challenges and especially when direct contact with bidders happens. In the case of the PPC officials the interview will be exclusively related to the evaluation of the procedures performed by the system in the transparency and accountability issue. Particularly the main subject of the interview will be related to comprehend those complaints or review requests related to bribery. The government officials chosen will have a large experience prior to the e-Procurement implementation, so questions will be oriented also in terms of comparisons between the stages. All interviews lasted from 30 to 45 minutes and were be digitally recorded. However transcripts were used in order to capture tacit elements and describe non-verbal communication as suggested by Walsham (2006). The interviews of technical feature relate to the objective of system evaluation in terms of accountability and integrity. The interviews with the government officials are intended to deeper analyze the reasons for the lack of anticorruption policy implementation and to find possible gaps between the system application and the legal framework. Moreover the intent is to produce knowledge that can improve the e-Procurement system.

4.3 RESEARCH ETHICS The research will be performed based on fair and honest principles. The project was conducted in fully respect of the Albanian and EU legislations. In particular the main legal framework is composed by the Albanian law On personal data protection and the EU Data Protection Directive 95/46 EC. These laws provide helpful methods on how to process the data and in particular for the part of international data transfer. However, the collection of personal data was be minimal and was required only for the semi-structured interviews. All participants were informed about the purpose of data collection and then will be asked for a given consent before any data processing takes place. The participants were also informed that they have the possibility to revoke the consent during the research period. Furthermore, they were explained that the data collected will not be processed with the intent to take measures or decisions but only for scientific and statistical research. In relation to the survey
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no participant or data subject were identified or identifiable in the illustration of the results on the final paper as they survey was anonymous. Specific added provisions of confidentiality were taken in the case of the research related to the technical performances of the e-Procurement system. The commitment of confidentiality was applied not only during the research project but also after the project work is concluded. The data that were collected from documents and reports were of public dominion so no special provision was required but in any case their use will be related only to the research purposes. During the field work a clear openness attitude was be the basis of the interaction with the participants. The liability of the research project was also to create the instauration of trust in the relations with the participants in order to gain a successful and efficient collaboration. Furthermore, since the research project might collect relevant data, risk assessments were performed before the fieldwork. The research project during all the activities was exclusively based on trusted data and will produce objective outputs also because the case study is of social responsibility.

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5. ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS In this section the results of the data research are illustrated. The survey results are presented in a coherent form also on the basis of the questions interrelations. The interview outcomes are grouped on main characteristics defined as constructs.

5.1 SURVEY RESULTS The participants of the survey were only economic operators who have participated at least at one tendering procedure through the E-procurement system. The area of business of the participating companies can be primarily categorised as services (32%), transportation and trade (20%), manufacturing (18%), ICT (14%) and other (16%). The uncategorised economic

operators primarily provenience was NGO-s or Not for Profit organisations and

universities. It is important to remind that 80% of the participants were domestic EO while 20% foreigners. The participation of 14 ICT companies answering the questionnaire
Figure 5.1 - Sector of activity

(while in Albania only 7% of business companies are distinguished as such) suggests the higher level of awareness to electronic means and related issues. The size of the EO participants was measured per number of employees. The majority of them (70%) can be defined as small companies according to the EU standards. Moreover, close to 1/3 of the participants, operate as
Figure 5.2 - Business size

minute or micro business. The other 30% of the EO categorise themselves as medium or large companies. Some of them commented that are even multinationals with thousands of employees. The human capacity of the EO-s in relation to the presence of employee profiles closely related to E-procurement activities such as IT and procurement specialists demonstrated a variety of answers related and as a consequence of their business size. About 32 % of the participants do have both an IT and a procurement specialist and this is true for all 30 % who
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consist of more than 50 employees. Moreover, many other companies (18%) have decided to outsource these internal business activities. On the other hand, close to of the participants do not have similar employees and do not even procure them. This is particularly true because of the micro-size of their business. Moreover, it is interesting to notice that 16% of the participants do have an IT expert and 10 % a procurement specialist. This is means that close to half of the participants (48%) include an IT specialist in their staff.

Figure 5.3 Employee profiles

The internet connection available to the company employees and business premises can be recognised as sufficient for the use of the procurement system, at least for 78 % of the companies. This is because 22 % of the participants have a simple modem/dial up connection with a bandwidth below 1 Mb/s.

Figure 5.4 Internet connection speed

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Moreover, about 28 % of the companies have reported to have frequently problems with the internet connection, 4 % of which do have them very often. Despite the fact that the majority of the participants do have them rarely (54 %) or almost never (18%), it should be remarked that the internet connection quality has a direct impact to the use of the Eprocurement system.

Figure 5.5 Internet connection problems frequency

The Economic Operators internet availability limits their easy and fast access of the eprocurement system and therefore participation to the tendering announcements. About 1/3 of the EO have participated only once to a public procurement procedure through the system. About 65% of them can be identified in the category of those having often or very often problems with the internet connection.

Figure 5.6 - E-procurement participation

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On the other hand, 30 % of the Economic Operators who have participated to more than 20 e-procurement procedures are part of the group who rarely or almost never have problems with the internet connection. This correlation is not fully reflected in the case of awarding. However, from those participating more than 20 times to public procurement tenders through the e-procurement platform, only 4% have never been never awarded. The answers illustrated in Figure 5.7 demonstrate that 42% of the participants had won more than once while only 8% more than 20. Close to half of the participants (46%) have never won and 12% only once. It is in the comment box of this question where the first criticisms to the e-procurement system from the participants have been reported. In commenting the question about the frequency of awarding only two of the participants have used strong words in defining the eprocurement system as corrupt or manipulated.

Figure 5.7 E-procurement awarding

The first interaction with the E-procurement system according to the PPA website is done through training. Raising awareness and implanting knowledge is not easy. However, only 30% of the participants have been trained, 12% of which considers the training received not sufficient. More than half of the participants (56%) have taken advantage of the online material available on the PPA website and have trained as autodidacts. Moreover, 14% of the participants have no direct relation to the e-procurement system but they have outsourced the system use activity (10%) or gain external assistance for its application (4%). One participant has reported that he has requested to be trained several times to the PPA but has not yet been convoked. In conclusion, 70% of the participants have not received any training and other 12% considers such activity as not exhaustive.

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Figure 5.8 E-procurement training

Training increases system usability and makes the users feel more comfortable through system navigation. In Figure 5.8 the high percentage of participants choosing self-training can be explained due to easy-to-use solution provided by the e-procurement system. Only 20% of the participants consider the e-procurement system as unfriendly while 42% judge it as friendly or very friendly. However, some

participants have commented that despite that the system is very friendly is hard to keep up with the system updates as new features are continuously added, sometimes even without notifying. Therefore, training
Figure 5.9 - System usability

has not to be considered as a one-time activity but a continuous process system requirement. Few other participants have also commented that some improvements are necessary like the possibility to use other web browsers expect Internet Explorer. As of now, the e-procurement solution provides its operations only through the Microsoft Web Browser. However, as contested by some participants, they do not find this browser very friendly and fast compared to others. Therefore, this limitation can have an impact on the e-procurement system perception itself.

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System usability is connected to the system availability as a consequence. If the system is available all the time in all platforms it is easier to enhance usability. About 1/3 of user consider the availability of the e-procurement system to be not adequate. On the other, 42% of them consider it to be good or very good. This is because, as

suggested in the comments, the system is a web platform

accessible everywhere and very rarely it has availability

problems.

The information
Figure 5.10 - E-procurement availability

about procedures and tendering

publications is always online and downloadable. The amount of information still has not to be considered only quantitatively but also qualitatively.

Harmonised with the previous feedback, 42% of the participants are satisfied with the level of information available on the eprocurement system and PPA website. On the other hand, 24% considers the information as not exhaustive or not valuable. Some have commented that more details are required especially for products that are not standard. Consumer goods requirements are easier to be understood when compared to a product on order. Therefore, few participants have commented that dissatisfaction is due to poor quality of information. This information is contested as ambiguous or contradictory. Moreover, a foreign participant has stated that not all the information is available in English and that the translation is not always very good. Consequently when the information is unclear or scarce, the participants have the need to contact the PPA or the Contracting Authority for clarifications or further details. Most of the users (62%) do not require further contacting and consider satisfactory the information published on the first step. However, the rest often
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Figure 5.11 Information quality and quantity

(20%) or very often (14%) necessitate for additional

information. A small minority (4%) do even need to contact the PPA authority more than once for the same procedure. Despite this, very few find the

contacting useless. This is due to the lack of collaboration and proper communication. However, as it appears in Figure 5.13 that only 16% of the participants are not satisfied with the and
Figure 5.12 Contact and support needs

communication

collaboration. On the other hand, 32% of the participants are satisfied or very satisfied with the cooperation and support given by the PPA and related authorities. The need for contacting and
Figure 5.13 Collaboration and communication

collaboration should be minimal as the procedures are expected to be fully electronic. However, the participants when answering about the satisfaction about the functions of status control offered by the system are divided. Many of them (38%) are satisfied with the functions offered by the system to check the status of their offers and to control the procedure. Conversely, 34% of them are not satisfied with these system functions. This

dissatisfaction is commented by
Figure 5.14 E-procurement traceability and status control

some due to the lack of complete digitalisation of all tendering

procedures. For example, a few have claimed that the system does not offer the digital
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documentation of the report and records when the offers are opened. According, to this participants the information should be public and available online. Traceability and control are performances which require high technical security. These activities are required to be practiced on matters of trust where every user is accountable. The majority of the participants consider the technical security of the e-procurement

system robust. It means that the participants perceive and rely that it is not possible to intervene in the system. Only authorised users can operate in the system and every
Figure 5.15 - E-procurement security

activity of each user is registered and can be audited at any time. System security with is the closely data

interrelated

protection offered by the system. The variation in giving an

assessment on the data protection compared to the answers on the technical security is minimal (only 2%). However, a participant has
Figure 5.16 Data protection

commented

that

the

system

presents some data protection issues related to a function of recycle bin. This is an area where many past submissions with contact details of employees and companies can be found and are accessible to every user. Nevertheless, data protection in the case of public e-procurement system can be viewed as an opposing factor to the overall goal of transparency. Publishing personal data is part of the consent forms submitted when a natural person applies as a representative of its company. Regarding the data about the companies which are not personal are not viewed as a problem since they are available to everyone through the website of the National Business Register.

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In Figure 5.17 the trend of the e-procurement system evaluation on transparency is preserved on the same traits as for the security and data protection. This despite, as mentioned, that the factors can be viewed conflicting. However, it is relevant to notice that close to of the participants are not satisfied with the level by the of e-

transparency

offered

procurement system. Some of these participants assert that the system offers standard transparency where information is rigid and similar for each procedure despite the
Figure 5.17 - E-procurement transparency

peculiarities that each of them has. As identified during the literature review, transparency is enhanced by efficiency. Most of the participants consider the e-procurement system to be effective. The positive factors of cost savings and lead time reduction of the procurement procedure confirm the positive correlation to the transparency itself. Many old users of the system observed in the comments that the eprocurement system is

improving continuously in terms

Figure 5.18 E-procurement efficiency

of efficiency. The efficacy of the system is further confirmed by the procedural compatibility of the e-procurement processes with of the the

business

companies. About 70% of the economic operators consider the e-procurement system to be aligned
Figure 5.19 System compatibility

with

the

internal

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business activities of their company. However, some suggest that significant ought to be made e-procurement complete cycle. This means to incorporate information on CA decisionmaking process to and submit create the

opportunity

complaints

directly through the system. However, the overall performance of the e-procurement system is judged by 70% of the participants According to to be

satisfactory.

some

comments the e-procurement system is a very good tool to save cost and time. Even the remaining 30% value in the
Figure 5.20 E-procurement performance

comments that the system is efficient but are unconvinced with the human intervention on the procurement procedures. The pure technical assessment of the participants on the e-procurement system can be summed up in the table below.

Table 5.1 Factor Usability Availability Traceability Security Data protection Transparency 8 Efficiency 10 16 6 42 32 32 50 2 2 3.04 3.28 1 10 18 18 10 10 2 10 16 16 10 12 3 38 24 28 42 44 4 32 36 36 32 30 5 10 6 2 6 4 Mean 2.96 3.12 2.88 3.14 3.06

To each response on the key factor it is assigned the corresponded value of the answer from 1 to 5. The mean of each of these value shows that the efficiency of the e-procurement system is the leading factor. This is followed by a good performance of system security and availability. Data protection and transparency factors are close to the range of fair evaluation.

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On the other hand, usability and especially traceability require more attention and improvement. The system performance factors are summed up in the following chart. Therefore, the success of the system e-procurement is based on

efficiency and security. These drivers are not easy to gain and

especially efficiency as mentioned literature in review the can

push transparency and consequently corruption antibehaviour.

Figure 5.21 Mapping technical factors

5.2 INTERVIEW OUTCOME

Political commitment According to all the participants interviewed the political commitment towards the

successful implementation and enforcement of the e-procurement system has been very strong. The Prime Minister has always been the leading actor towards the achievements of the public e-procurement in Albania. Moreover, the parliament has drafted and approved the laws necessary for the accomplishment. The Procurement Advocate has been mandated from the Assembly for the complaints. The Public Procurement Commission which acts under the Prime Minister Office has been set-up very efficiently according to P1 also with the mandate to process complaints from the Economic Operators. Most of the participants sustain that the possibility to present complaints at any time during the procurement process is an accomplishment. However, in a contrast view, P5 argues that this is not a good practice. This is because when a procurement process has not yet been closed, complaints provide justification to intervene in the procedure. According to P5 in all cases the intrusion of any stakeholder and authority outside the Contracting Authority during the procedure should be disregarded until a formal decision has been made.

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Organisational coordination The participants sustain that the public authorities responsible for the procurement

procedures are in general terms well aligned. However, P2 and P3 have articulated the difficulties of the first years of e-procurement implementation. This was because the Public Procurement Agency was the central authority for every process even complaints. The introduction of the new public authorities such as the Procurement Advocate and the Public Procurement Commission was not easy. Collaboration and coordination between actors was challenged from possible overlapping duties and supervisory debates on hierarchical structure. Even nowadays, P2 and P3, have referred that there is no communication between the Procurement Advocate and the Public Procurement Commission.

Technical administration The unification of standards for the technical specifications and procurement

processes offered by the system is according to P2 an achievement of equality and trust. Moreover, most of the participants observe information quality, security and technical performance as important achievements. However, P7 debates that there are many technical features that the e-procurement system does not offer. The most important of these, is that the system does not have a programmed calendar for the date of closing of an opened tender. The law states that every procurement procedure should be done in 23 days and therefore the system should calculate this date to close the procedure automatically. Moreover, P7 formulates technical doubts about administration and the creation of users. However, as P5 sustains the users for each Contracting Authority is created by an administrated appointed by the CA itself which generally is the officialholder. P5 also reveals that the super-administrator rights of the public e-procurement system is made by three high-ranking officials who need to access it contemporarily through personalised and partial passwords.

Transparency awareness

Most of the participants uphold transparency as primary value of the e-procurement system. This is because information availability and the high possibility of system access favours public domain. They even sustain that the e-procurement system should also be
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used for public concessions. However, few others criticize that the system should be improved before incorporating other public procedures. These improvements have to do with the digitalisation of complaints and the possibility to trace decisions and recommendations on procurement procedures. Furthermore, they prolong that the access should be higher to both the system, especially for complaints. This is because the Procurement Advocate does not have access on the e-procurement system because no user has been created for them. The 0.5% fee on the value of the tender established by the Public Procurement Commission for the acceptance of complaints is also an obstacle to full digitalisation. Cultural aspects

According to P1, P4 and P7 many problems are related to cultural mentality. Similar to Grodeland and Aseland (2011), they maintain that the Economic Operators sometimes want to avoid bureaucratic requirements and try to contact the key persons to facilitate tendering applications. According to the participants, these behaviours limit the use of the eprocurement system. Conversely, P2, P3 and P6 regard these actions primarily due to the process gaps which are yet unfulfilled by the e-procurement system. This sustain that the elimination of direct contact outside the system can be achieved only through complete eprocurement digitalisation. In this context, P5 evidenced that the difficulties to achieve the desired solution are confined by legal constraints. P5 observes that full-digital e-procurement requires electronic signature, which is difficult to introduce nationally to all public authorities and private companies. Moreover, the lack of a law on digital archives and the difficult attain of a successful e-government interoperability are significant obstacles to total e-procurement.

6. DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS The qualitative data confirmed the main outcomes of the survey results, despite the counterpart views on the system. However, some peculiarities of the survey comments mainly defined the procurement problems in the area of public authorities. On the other hand, the interview participants classified the challenges on technical aspects of the system and organisational coordination. Economic operators view the lack of communication and transparency as an outside problem without being fully aware of internal limitations because of shortcomings in terms of experience and resources on the use of e-procurement. The dissatisfaction comments of the private comments sometimes are very general without giving
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specific details to justify evaluations. Only 5% of the survey participants have made sustained that the e-procurement system is not helpful in reducing corruption. Nevertheless, the need for system training is objective and sensitive. The Contracting Authorities and the public authorities involved in the e-procurement use do not judge these complaints as fully unjustified. They sustain that training activities are periodically performed; however the large number of users and sessions are impossible to be held for all continuously since the PPA has a limited number of staff. Overall, all participants agree that the e-procurement system is an efficient method to public tendering contrary to the previously paper-based processes. The increased average number of participants for procurement from 3 to 8 is the first significant data of success. Moreover, the information availability and quality is considered an achievement because the public sharing of the documents is subject to control and traceability from users. These functions increase transparency and therefore limit bribery behaviours. This means that eprocurement system developed from the Albanian Government is an important achievement towards the fight against corruption. This means that the road towards public transparency through this system is pertinent. However, the Government should not consider the eprocurement as a finished project. The needs evidenced and the feedback provided from the data research provides helpful insights for the necessary improvements. Increasing

digitalisation, accessibility, traceability and introducing new system functions must be short term goals of the public authorities responsible for the e-procurement maintenance. Public procurement as an administrative process is subject to continuous improvements. Efficiency as a common shared benefit shared from all actors and as the leading key-enabler of transparency can still be the driver upon which these developments can be oriented. The efficiency focus of the procurement process and the technical and organisational needs evidenced in the previous can be mapped through the Value Chain Model introduced by Porter (1985; 2001). The adoption of this model (Figure 6.1) in the case of the Albanian public e-procurement case matches the needs with the goals. The profitable value will be efficiency and efficacy. Efficiency will be the driver and the mean of procurement transparency while efficacy will be the desired effect of the corruption reduction. These objectives are also part of the primary aim of the Law on Public Procurement. The primary activities have a similar flow with the Value Chain. The input is the publication of the public offer and the processing is the phase where all bidders make their submissions. Both these procedures are made electronically by the e-procurement system. The output is the closure of the public offers receiving from the contracting authority. This
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activity needs to re-introduce the electronic act of closure in the system together with the feature of automatic closure as referred in the previous section. The sale phase of the value chain can be referred as the decision step where the winning bidder is announced, this is already done by the system. On the other hand, the after-decision activities (after-sale in Porters) can be added as a new feature on the electronic procurement s ystem as the complaint process. This can be as a system function where the Procurement Advocate and the Public Procurement Commission users access the system and can investigate all the previous activities. Figure 6.1

(source. Porter. 1985; Porter 2001) The supporting activities of the e-procurement configure to have a virtual organization that communicates and contacts only through the system. This can minimise the need for personal contacting avoiding the bias of wrong behaviour. Moreover, the e-procurement system can introduce in-depth online training and support functionalities. This can favour through specific areas to held public training for users even weekly for at least two hours. Moreover, the help-desk can be transferred online for any personalised troubleshooting. These new features developments can be synchronised from the virtual organisation of the PPA and introduced online in the training area.

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7. REFERENCES

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Singer, M., Konstantinidis, G., Roubik, E., Beffermann, E., 2009. Does E-Procurement save the State money? Journal of Public Procurement, 9 (1), pp. 58-78. Smith, M. L., 2010. Perceived corruption, distributive justice, and legitimacy of the system of social stratification in the Czech Republic. Communist and PostCommunist Studies, 43, pp. 439-451. Transparency International, (2010). The 2010 Corruption Perception Index [online] Available at: <http://www.transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/cpi/2010> Vaidya, K., Sajeev, A. S. M., Challender, G., (2006). Critical Factors that influence eProcurement implementation success in the public sector. Journal of Public Procurement, 6 ( 1 & 3), pp. 70-99 Walsham, G., 1995. Interpretive case studies in IS research: nature and method, European Journal of Information Systems, 4 (2), pp. 74-81. Walsham, G., 2006. Doing interpretive research, European Journal of Information Systems, 15 (3) June, pp. 320-330. Williams, S. P., Hardy, C. A., Public eProcurement as socio-technical change. Strategic Change, 14 (5) August, pp. 273-281. Wong, K. C., 2009. How Chinese e-public feel and think about corruption: A case study of Audit Storm. International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice, 37, pp. 104-130.

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