Designing and implementing e-government to strengthen transparency and reduce

corruption in Peru: The case of INFOBRAS (2009 – 2017) - (Alberto Wurst)

1. Introduction

It is undeniable that corruption in Peru is a widespread problem and some would even venture
to say that it is embedded in the DNA of Peruvians. In the last couple of years, it has come to be
situated among the biggest challenges the country has to overcome to further develop itself. In
this sense, Peruvian’s Comptroller General Office (CGO)1, the main national agency in charge of
controlling the country’s public resources, came up with an interesting innovation idea to try to
tackle the problem with the help of ICTs. The result of this initiative has been the development
and implementation of the INFOBRAS platform. Its role is to help curb the corruption problem
in the country by allowing a more transparent access to the information of what gets done with
public resources in relation to public works. This paper aims to better understand the process of
development and implementation of INFOBRAS and to try to assess the value that it could have
provided to the fight against corruption in the country by analyzing it through the lenses of
literature produced around e-government.

2. Approaching the problem of corruption in Peru

Many authors have pointed out the structural nature of government or political corruption in
Peru, and have even gone far back to when the country was still a Spanish colony to try to find
what has made the country so historically corrupt. One of the most comprehensive studies
about corruption in Peru has been made by Quiroz (2013), who by analyzing 250 years of political
and economic history in the country comes to the conclusion that the main cause of corruption
lies in the weakness of Peruvian institutions, especially the ones that should watch over and
prevent corrupt behavior. For the author, this has been a vicious circle very hard to break and
enabled by a country’s elite (political, economic, military, burocratic) very much driven by short
term profiteering.

Coming back to the current day, it would seem that this trend hasn’t been altered that much.
Going from the top, the 3 last elected Presidents in the timeframe 2001-2016 are currently
under investigation and facing accusations of corrupt behavior in the past. Moreover, as of 2016,
11 former regional governors from 25 total regions haven been formally accused with charges
related to corruption (Andina, 2016). Going down one level, at local government level, things
appear only to be worst: an official report of 2014 revealed that 92% of Mayors (1699 of a total
of 1841 municipalities) were being investigated on charges linked to corruption (RPP Noticias,
2014). On the other hand, the issues of corruption and elected officials seems to be just the tip
of the iceberg. The CGO detected in a timeframe of 7 years around 25.000 public servants linked
to some type of corrupt behavior, nevertheless only around 600 people were actually sentenced
and only 40 were put in jail (RPP Noticias, 2016). This last indicator encompasses pretty well the
state of the current situation. The system as a whole, and the institutions in charge of
preventing, fighting and punishing corruption, seem to be not working well, especially on the
lower levels of government, where institutional capacity tends to function at its lowest levels.

1
Contraloría General de la República (CGR) in spanish.

1
The CGO has roughly estimated that the Peruvian government loses around 3 billion dollars
every year because of corruption (Gestion, 2016). This entails around 3% and 5% of the country’s
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) (Peru 21, 2017). Different surveys have also shown that Peruvian
citizens perceive corruption currently as the second main problem in the country (El Peruano,
2017). Nevertheless, even if corruption is perceived as bad in the country, it has been somewhat
institutionalized by a big percentage of the population that considers it as sometimes necessary
or unavoidable in dealing with the government and burocracy (Proetica, 2017).

The institutionalization of corruption is one of the more serious issues that the country has to
battle against, especially in areas like public works, which could be considered as one of the
main drivers of public corruption in the country. This can be clearly illustrated by the so called
“diezmo”, inspired in the old tradition to give the church 10% of your earnings. In Peru it has
become an unofficial rule that companies have to allocate a certain percentage of their budget
in the procurement of a service to the government in paying a bribe under the table to certain
public officials (Gestion, 2017). This practice is spread among all levels, from national level and
the biggest contracts (where Presidents and Ministers are investigated) to the lower levels of
government, and in the smallest municipalities where control mechanisms don’t work very well
or don’t even work at all. Under this circumstances, public money is widely misused, market
incentives are distorted and bad decisions based on illegal rewards can become the norm. Some
even claim that the real cost of corruption is not the actual money that a public servant receives,
but it lies in a badly designed and executed project, with cheap materials, and that will require
to be constantly fixed or even replaced (El Comercio, 2015).

All these aspects bring us back to a previous mentioned issue: weak institutions. The CGO, the
main institution appointed to fight corruption in the country, states that it lacks the capacity to
oversee all public institutions in the country. Even when there has been some concern in regards
to the national and regional level in the agenda, at municipality level, capacity to control is
around 8%. This means that if Peru at the lowest level is divided into 1646 districts, only 130
districts have some type of presence of the CGO by the means of a control office or person.
Moreover, the CGO states that since accountability mechanisms are so weak, public resources
at local level are at the mercy of local officials who can turn their term in office into a very
profitable enterprise (Gestion, 2017).

3. Research objectives and methodological approach

The objectives of this research will be to trying to answer the following questions:

1- What have been the main challenges and success factors during the design and
implementation process of INFOBRAS?
2- How close has INFOBRAS came to realize its initial objectives?

We think that taking this approach around the INFOBRAS issue is actually valuable, since there
really isn’t any academic type of research done around the subject. Most of all information
available has been actually produced as report type documents that only tend to highlight the
positive aspects of the initiative, while not having a critical view on the matter. Also since
INFOBRAS is an e-government type tool, we think it is appropriate to use an e-government
theoretical framework to better approach it. To achieve our research objectives we will rely on
an exploratory qualitative type of research. We will primarily base our case findings an all

2
available written information available, to then contrast this and further expand it with semi-
structured type of interviews conducted on people related to the INFOBRAS project.

Finally, before proceeding, we find it important to first define two basic terms that will appear
a lot during this paper. First of all, we will understand e-government as the use of information
and communication technologies (ICTs) to transform relations between citizens, businesses and
various branches of government (UNDP, 2006). Moreover the definition of corruption we will
use is more specifically linked to government type corruption. In short: the abuse or misuse of
entrusted power for private gain in the public sector (UNDP, 2006).

4. Does e-government have an effect in reducing corruption?

Corruption is regarded mostly as a governance issue, more precisely, a failure of institutions and
lack of capacity to manage society by means of a framework of political, legal, social and
economic checks and balances (UNDP, 2006). Since a couple of decades, with the emergence of
globalization, there have been pressures for improving governing institutions and a global trend
for a more transparent governance, especially given the more accessible and widespread use of
ICTs worldwide. This has led to the alignment of ICT related solutions with many strategies to
reduce corruption (UNDP, 2006). Traditionally, different strategies have been put in place, but
we can broadly sum them up around the following factors: establishing professionalism,
enhancing bureaucratic quality, supporting law enforcement in society, and since the 1990s, e-
government type solutions (Shim & Eom, 2008).

If we talk about the empiric relationship between e-government and the reduction and
prevention of corruption, the literature remains somewhat divided among the degree of success
that one has had over the other during the years. The arguments in favor tend to point out that
e-government reduces in person contact with public officials which can reduce the ability of
individuals to interfere in regulated and standardized processes, conducing to a diminished risk
for corruption that tends to emanate from discretionary decision making (Basel Institute on
Governance, 2017). Additionally, ICTs can automate a digital trace of any human action and
decisions in relation to government procedures, which can help trace alterations to the norms
(better documentation). In this sense, an important argument in favor is the increased
transparency capability that e-government can help build to improve trust from the citizens in
their government (Basel Institute on Governance, 2017). The importance of citizen participation
component that e-government tends to encourage must be pointed out. For the United Nations
(UN), there has been a conceptual shift towards seeing e-government as a means to enable
whole-of-government service delivery, policy integration, and also increased transparency and
accountability through the use of open government data and participatory tools (UN, 2016).
Nevertheless, it has been also pointed out that ICTs in general cannot solve the corruption
problem by themselves, since these have to be supported by other measures which will normally
require a strategy involving multiple sectors to be effective (Basel Institute on Governance,
2017).

The focus of the literature on the subject has been both from a micro and macro approach,
which means on one hand examining specific country cases in terms of social and economic
effects of e-government, while the macro approach compares different jurisdictions and indices
to assess the effectiveness of policies and reforms on corruption levels (Basel Institute on
Governance, 2017). The later method has been probably more established in the literature since
there are consistent measurements of corruption in the last couple of decades, especially the

3
Corruption Perception Index (CPI) elaborated by Transparency International and the E-
Government Development Index (EDI) from the UN. Using this indexes, Mistry & Jalal (2012),
suggests that as the use of e-government increases, corruption decreases. The author’s model
suggests that 1% increase in the EDI may have a 1.17% decrease in the CPI. Moreover, the UN
suggests that there is a strong correlation between the EDI and CPI, since countries with high
corruption rates in the public sector will generally score poorly on their ability to deliver public
services via ICTs and also open government data (UN, 2016).

Specifically in the area of public procurement, our main area of interest, a World Bank study
(2016) suggests that the implementation of e-procurement systems neither increased public
procurement competitiveness nor reduced the incidence of bribery to secure government
contracts, especially in developing countries. This went against the initial rationale that adopting
e-procurement will increase the likelihood that companies participate in public tenders and thus
limit corruption. The report points out that one of the main reasons for this is that public
procurement needs government officials to still exercise their discretion in the process when
evaluating technical or financial aspects, which limits the scope of automation (World Bank,
2016).

It is important to point out that the report form the World Bank reinforces the notion that
complementary measures are needed in the implementation of solutions like e-procurement. It
is necessary for example to inform the companies of the changes and hopefully support them in
the process of change to obtain the benefits of ICTs, which normally also means for countries to
invest in scaling up the access to ICTs (World Bank, 2016). Moreover, the report suggests that
the impact on corruption through government varies by the type and activity, mainly three
factors: the incentives for citizens to monitor the service and provide feedback, the extent to
which the processes for production and delivery of the services are based on tasks that can be
standardized and made routine, and the measurability and extent to which the outputs and
outcomes from the task can be attributed to particular public actors or actions (World Bank,
2016).

This brings us back to the notion that tackling systemic corruption requires multiple type of
approaches which require preventive, repressive, and reformist measures, hence the need for a
more whole-of-government approach (World Bank, 2016). For starters, authors like Kim (2014),
stress the importance of e-government for curbing corruption, but find that rule of law is still
the most powerful predictor of anti-corruption as well as a fundamental precondition. On the
other hand, Shim & Eom (2008) find that statistically, e-government approaches are as effective
as other more traditional corruption control efforts like establishing professionalism,
institutionalizing high quality bureaucracy and law enforcement. Even though there seems to be
no consensus on the degree of influence of e-government in reducing corruption over other
approaches, the literature shows an overwhelming consensus on its important contribution to
enhance openness, accountability and government transparency, which are vital factors in the
fight against corruption.

5. Challenges and success factors for implementing and adopting e-government to strengthen
transparency

Since the beginning of the 2000’s, different authors and organizations have discussed somewhat
extensively about what aspects can play against or in favor at the moment of implementation
of an e-government project. This has led to an extensive talk about what are the main

4
challenges, obstacles, barriers, etc. for e-government projects at the moment of
implementation, but also what aspects contribute in a positive way. The main goal of this
discussion has been to assess and comprehend what makes e-government projects turn out
somewhat successful or with poor outcomes in relation to initial the expectations.

On the challenges or barriers side, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and
Development (OECD) has pointed out to the lack of a proper legal framework for e-government,
budgetary constraints (in the long run and preventing shared funding between agencies),
technical frameworks and infrastructure problems, failing to ensure a common vision from
leaders as a means to achieve coordination between agencies, lack of skills and motivation in
the human resources, etc. (OECD, 2003). Other authors point out that the main challenge are of
technical (interoperability, privacy, security, IT management), economic (cost, maintainability,
reusability), and social nature (accessibility, usability, acceptance, citizen engagement) (Signore
et al., 2005; Dawes, 2008). A meta-analysis conducted by Gil and Pardo identifies 5 categories:
information and data (quality, accuracy, completeness, etc.), information technology (security,
ease of use, technical skills, etc.), organizational and managerial (reluctance to change, lack of
alignment between organization’s goals and IT project, etc.), legal and regulatory (restrictive
laws and regulation, etc.) and institutional and environmental (privacy concerns, political
pressures, socio-economic environment, etc.) (Gil & Pardo, 2005). As we can observe, e-
government challenges have been tackled from very different perspectives and applying
different typologies.

On the side of success factors, the literature mentions the importance of commitment and
leadership (political and bureaucratic), change management, choice of technology, staff
training, friendliness of the service, etc. (Singh Kalsi & Kiran, 2013). The OECD mentions 3 main
pillars as keys to success: engage with citizens and open up government to maintain public trust,
adopt joined-up approaches to deliver public value and strengthen capacities to ensure return
on ICT investments (OECD, 2013). Moreover, it has also been mentioned: continuous feedback
from partner users, ease of use, usefulness of the technology, project team skills and expertise,
well-skilled and respected IT leader, clear and realistic goals, identification of relevant
stakeholders, end user involvement, measurable deliverables, good communication, adequate
training, etc. (Gil & Pardo, 2005).

Especially important for our analysis will be the work of Bertot et al. (2010), who explore the use
of e-government and ICTs to create a culture of transparency. The authors find that government,
development organizations and citizen groups are increasingly linking investment, governance
and support to achieve a more open and transparent government. This has translated into the
creation of numerous information systems that engage in transparent government activities and
open to citizen scrutiny (Bertot et. Al, 2010). The research suggests that to implement these
transparency systems, the challenges lie less on the technological development and more on
the side of technology access and literacy. More specifically, the lack of access and penetration
of the internet in the country and also being able to understand and use technologies through
which transparency tools are made available. This relates strongly to the role of the digital divide
and how issues like usability (intuitive design of the tool), functionality (features desired by
citizens) and training should be taken into account in order to make a more conscious effort to
make the initiative more inclusive and participatory (Bertot et. Al, 2010). On the other hand, the
authors also suggest 2 main critical success factors for these types of initiatives: a culture of
transparency embedded within the governance system and a transparency “readiness” factor
on the ground. In other words, this means a culture of openness to permeate governance

5
structures and operations and the technical and social capabilities needed for transparency
initiatives. This two aspects must operate in tandem in order to achieve the essential trust and
truly create and open and transparent environment (Bertot et. Al, 2010).

Finally, this leads us to the concept of e-government adoption, or how e-government is adopted
or used by stakeholders in society, which we think will be useful to approach and analyze the
adoption degree that INFOBRAS may have had. The literature on this topic has focused on the
use of a range of theories and models to determine which variables could account for the
adoption and actual use of e-government by different stakeholders, mainly from citizen-users
(demand side), but also from government employees (supply side) on a lesser degree (Batara et
al., 2017). This distinction is very important since both citizens and employees have different set
of incentives and constraints that are important when trying to apply certain adoption model,
mostly because employees could in fact be obliged to use certain technological tools in their
daily work while common citizens are not.

Among the literature and the different models proposed for technology adoption, there are
some variables that are recurrent both in citizen and employee studies that provide some insight
around what factors motivate individuals to actually use an information system. The factors that
appear more frequently in the literature are: perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use,
perceived risk, trust, user training, interpersonal influence, self-efficacy, trust of the internet,
information quality, facilitating conditions, quality of the service, perceived reputation, etc.
(Batara et al., 2017). Moreover, the most used models for trying to explain individual adoption
of new technology seem to be, or based upon the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and the
Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) an their different variations and
updated versions (Carter & Weerakkody, 2008). Briefly explained, TAM, which is based on the
theory of reasoned action, suggests that higher perceptions of usefulness and ease of use will
increase intention to use a system (Carter & Weerakkody, 2008). The Delone and McLean (D&M)
updated version of TAM adds the dimensions of quality of the system, quality of information
and quality service as also important predictors of intention to use and user satisfaction
(Rehman et al., 2016). Finally the UTAUT model proposes a more comprehensive approach,
combining several behavioral models of technology adoption, the model suggests that three
constructs have direct effect on usage intentions: performance expectancy (relative advantage),
effort expectancy (complexity) and social influence (Carter & Weerakkody, 2008).

6. Case description

6.1 Public Investment System in Peru and identifying the problem

The Public Investment System in Peru has been spread among 3 different information systems
which had a different function and role in the cycle of investment of all public projects:

1- SNIP system (initial approval of investment projects)2

2- SEACE system (public procurement of goods and services)
3- SIAF system (financial execution and payments)

Both the SNIP and SIAF systems are under the responsibility of the Ministry of Economy and
Finance (MEF), while the SEACE system is under the responsibility of the Supervising Agency of
the Government Procurement (OSCE). In order to be able to adequately exercise its control role

2
SNIP system was replaced by INVIERTE.PE system in December 2016 (Legislative Decree N° 1252)

6
over the country’s resource expenditure, the CGO identified that the relevant information was
fragmented in different systems and not organized following the rationale of the life cycle of a
project (Figure 1). This made its control and audit duties difficult because of the lacking integral
picture of a project, while at the same time making it hard to other public institutions and the
general public to have an easy access to organized information about public spending.
Moreover, the CGO also identified that there was a lack of information regarding the degree of
physical progress across time of the different public works scattered all over the country, which
also made the control duties even harder to exercise (CGO, 2016).

Figure 1.

Source: GIZ, 2013

6.2 INFOBRAS as the solution

INFOBRAS was created to be the tool to help solve the previously described problem. Conceived
primarily as a web-based information system, it articulates and organizes the information from
3 different sources (SNIP, SEACE, SIAF) in a more user friendly way, while adding the feature of
physical progress of the different public works, which was previously not possible (Figure 2).
Moreover, it allows the general public to access this information and if needed upload
comments and pictures to the platform in relation to specific public works in order to contribute
in the control duties (CGO, 2016). The main purpose of INFOBRAS is (Vera, 2014):

1- Strengthen control and transparency of Peru’s public works 3 through the register,
articulation and publicity of information from the different public entities involved.
2- Incorporate citizens as allies in the execution of government control over public works.

3
The legal framework of INFOBRAS defines a public works as: “construction, reconstruction, remodel,
demolition, renewal, maintenance, habilitation and rehabilitation of immovable property such as:
buildings, structures, excavations, perforations, highways, bridges, etc.” (Directive N° 007-2013-CG/OEA).

7
To achieve this, INFOBRAS allows to access public works information nationwide from the 3
different government levels (national, regional, local) on real time and visualize relevant
information such as: assigned budget, physical and financial progress, geographic location in a
map, estimated period of execution, type of execution (directly, through contractors, etc.),
progress photographs, user comments and photographs, etc.

Figure 2.

Source: GIZ, 2013

In sum, the CGO identified the following stakeholders as the ones who will use it and benefit
more from INFOBRAS (CGO, 2016):

1- CGO internal clients (auditors)

2- Other public institutions and actors interested in the information
3- Public servant responsible for registering and updating the information
4- Citizens
5- Media

It is important to point out that a key player in the sustainability of the INFOBRAS system and
who holds the biggest responsibility in assuring the quality of the information is the public
servant in charge of registering and updating the status for all public works in each executing
unit in the different public institutions. This person has to be formally appointed through an
internal procedure before receiving the username and password that will allow for operating
the platform as a registered user with information edition capabilities.

8
6.3 Design and implementation of the project

The initial steps in creating INFOBRAS can be traced back to 2009, during the first year of
Comptroller General Fuad Khuory’s administration (2009 – 2016). After identifying the problem
previously described, the CGO came in contact with the German Corporation for International
Cooperation (GIZ) to further develop a solution with their aid and expertise in the area of good
governance (given that it was also one of their main areas of work within the country). Since the
beginning of the coordinations, the senior management of the CGO was very much involved
along the process. After maturing the idea of an information system as the necessary solution,
it was agreed that GIZ would be in charge of developing the system, while the CGO would be in
charge of making the project sustainable (CGO, 2016).

The development of the idea took other good practices as inspiration, especially one similar
system in the city of Manizales – Colombia named “Cobra” and the region of Mato Grosso in
Brasil with its system “GEO-Obras”. A technical visit was made in 2009 to the later in order to
know first-hand the feasibility of implementing a similar tool like this in Peru. After the first
prototype of the platform was ready, it was presented and validated with other government
stakeholders, especially public servants that deal with public works as their daily job. After
several workshops the design was further adjusted and made more user centered (CGO, 2016).

During this whole process, inter institutional cooperation agreements were signed between the
CGO and the MEF and OSCE in order to allow the interoperation of their systems with INFOBRAS.
For this, senior management and IT personal from all institutions were involved in the
coordinations, deciding finally on developing Web Services technology4 to allow the
interoperation of the systems and the access to the information (CGO, 2016). One of the key
elements was to develop internal functionalities so when given the project number the different
systems where capable to retrieve selected data fields from the other databases. It is important
to point out that the main technological challenges came in the early developing stage where
the layout of the variables to connect was being established. Moreover, once the system
became operational coordinations between the CGO, MEF and OSCE in regards of INFOBRAS has
been seldom, given that the Web Services haven’t presented major problems. Only when one
of the agencies modifies its system it must notified the other, so the services can be updated.

INFOBRAS saw its public debut in 2012. The back office team for the platform had initially 4
people working exclusively for the platform. Then, during the coming years it reached its
maximum number of 15 people, but then it was reduced again to around 7 people in 2017.
According to our interviewee this is due to the political changes the CGO went through in the
years of 2016 and 2017 because in a period of a little bit more than year it changed Comptroller
General 2 times. This brought a lot of uncertainty within the CGO and a lot personnel was either
removed or quit. Specifically for INFOBRAS, since Comptroller General Fuad Khuory’s
administration ended in 2016, internal support from top leadership towards INFOBRAS felt,
which also has negatively affected the platform, especially regarding the maintenance of the
system. Given this juncture, the back office could not hire new personal and was not able to
adequately operate the system, which led to not be able to have all the information updated
and the oversight capacity over the quality of the information putted into INFOBRAS also fell.
Even though initially the back office was meant to become a whole new department within the

4
Data source that is accessible via a standard web protocol (HTTP or HTTPS), designed to communicate
with other executable software (https://techterms.com/definition/web_service)

9
CGO, this did not happen and they remained as a unit within another department (CGO, 2016).
During all the years INFOBRAS has been operational, the main task for the personnel has been:

1- Keep the platform operational

2- Keep the system’s information with good quality and updated
3- Assist and provide support to the users of the platform

Additionally, the back office has also collaborated with the National School of Control (ENC),
another department of the CGO, to give off-line and on-line instruction to thousands of civil
servants from different parts of the country that are in charge with registering and updating the
public works information. Moreover, it is also important to state that the back office does not
conduct analysis with the data besides keeping track of certain basic metrics like number of
visitors, public works, users, etc. Its main role during these year has been to maintain the
information and have it available for when the different stakeholders might need it.

In terms of sustainability and consolidation of INFOBRAS, key steps and measures were taken in
order to achieve this. First of all, the platform has been empowered throughout its years of
existence through different legal mechanisms that make its use by all public works executing
units obligatory. The CGO has made its use mandatory for registering all public works and its
progress made through different internal directives (CGO, 2016). It is important to note that
once a public work is active, it should be updated at least once a month in terms of how much
of the budget has been executed and contrasting this with physical evidence of progress from
pictures that should also be attached. This roughly means for example that all the progress made
in one month should be at the latest be inserted in the system by the end of the following month.
Another important legal mechanism has been the inclusion of INFOBRAS in the yearly Budget
Law, demanding all public institutions in all levels of government to register information in the
system. Moreover, the MEF has included INFOBRAS indicators as part of the Results Based
Budget tool that all public institutions use to show they are conducting a good management and
achieving certain goals (CGO, 2016). Also the SEACE system requires to have an INFOBRAS code
before proceeding with procurement, which forces to register a public work in INFOBRAS before
starting to execute it. Nevertheless, after spending some time with the platform it is not hard to
discover that many big public organizations and regional and local governments appear to not
be conducting many public works (which is difficult to believe since a big part of these
institutions budget is allocated for this), and most of all, some of these that have an active life
of several months or years don’t seem to have the expected amount of updates across time.
When asked about this issue, it was stated that even though the registering of information is
mandatory by law, INFOBRAS has not developed and internal procedure to effectively initiate
measures against the public servants that are not complying with this. It was confirmed that no
sanctions have been imposed to any public official because of information registration issues in
the system during the years INFOBRAS has been operational because of the lacking procedure.

Another key aspect to asses is in regards of the actual use of the platform by public officials and
the general public. When asked about how does INFOBRAS track the traffic it generates, it was
stated that this is done primarily through the visitor counter in the web page, which allows only
to differentiate between registered users (necessarily public officials who have an account to
register information) and non-registered users. Internally in the CGO, it was stated that
INFOBRAS was very well known, especially by the organization auditors, who also have access
to a special module of the system with additional features like more tailored reports. For their
job INFOBRAS provides them with the type of information necessary for their control duties.
Moreover it was not possible to know how valuable and useful the internal clients of the CGO

10
found the tool, given that its use is also not mandatory but recommended, and also no surveys
in this regard have been conducted internally. So there is no actual indicator that can link how
many actual investigation procedures were initiated due to information provided by the
platform. Outside the CGO users, it was stated that also other high level public agencies request
periodically reports to INFOBRAS.

In regards to the use of the tool by the general public, it has been recognized that its use still
does not reach the engagement levels desired by the CGO (Mayaute, 2015). This situation is due
to the fact that the implementation strategy opted for prioritizing more intensively the
registering of information in hopes to achieve a critical mass of information that would make
itself appealing to the public. As of today, this remains as one of the main challenges for the CGO
and INFOBRAS to overcome, since this would boost citizen control in society (Mayaute, 2015).
The main actions taken for promoting and publicizing INFOBRAS have been made though
institutional bulletins, press releases, social media presence and presentations in different
national and international events (Mayaute, 2015). An interesting aspect to mention is that in
some of these events some suggestions and feedback has been picked up from attendees that
were encouraged to try the platform. Nevertheless, it is inaccurate to say that collecting
feedback on the functionality of the platform has been done systematically or that is a priority
within the back office duties.

Another important aspect to point out in regards to public participation is the crowdsourcing
capabilities5 the platform allows with the upload of comments with documents and pictures as
attachments if desired6. When asked regarding what steps were taken after a comment is
received, it was stated that it appear in the commentary module of the system, and goes through
a filter by an INFOBRAS analyst, who has to make sure it is a valid commentary (it is also not
published automatically in the site). After the comment has been approved, it will be shown in
the module that the CGO auditors have access to. In a best case scenario, this will function as an
alert for the auditor to start looking for irregularities in a particular public work, but if an
investigation is opened, there is no indicator that shows this started as a citizen initiative in the
platform. Moreover, there is no actual obligation to update and communicate the citizen with
what has been done with the information provided.

7. Findings & Analysis

The information collected on the design and implementation of INFOBRAS has pointed us to
several aspects found on the literature around e-government and transparency of information
that we should further develop in order to better achieve our research objectives. First of all, we
should probably address the main challenges that the literature suggest and that we have found
INFOBRAS has also encountered.

Many authors suggest that what limits e-government projects are not mere technological
aspects, but many others. In the case of INFOBRAS we can clearly see that later commitment for
the project and budgetary constraints have had an important impact on the the maintainability
of the platform, especially in the last two years (2016, 2017). This is due to the change in the
internal leadership of the CGO, which shows that INFOBRAS might have been a priority project

5
Practice of getting ideas or help on a project from a large number of people, usually through the
interne (https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/crowdsourcing)
6
The system requires an “alias” to be published, but also an email address that would be kept internally.

11
for the former General Comptroller Khuory (2009 – 2016), but its usefulness might have been
harder to perceive for its successors, who didn’t back the project enough to avoid that the
INFOBRAS lost so many essential personnel, putting in jeopardy the reliability of the platform.

Another very important pair of constraint for the project have been the legal framework on
which it operates and the lack of institutional capacity in the CGO, especially in the INFOBRAS
unit. This both aspects work in a tandem because even though there exists a current legal
framework that makes the use of INFOBRAS mandatory for registering public works information
(that somehow empowers the platform), the CGO through the INFOBRAS team lacks the
capacity to actually enforce this, given that first of all they lack an established procedure to do
so. This could have responded to a deliberate decision in management to avoid the responsibility
of processing thousands of potential public servants knowing the unit actually lacks the
resources to do so. Nevertheless, this is a crucial implementation failure that needs to get the
upmost attention given the context in which this initiative operates. There is a proven non
transparent culture in the country that needs to be changed and that also leans very easily
towards corruption. In this dynamic, it is proven that public officials and politicians play a big
role. Which type of incentives will personally move a civil servant to comply with the regulation
if punishment is not enforced when this is not done. Especially when there are also tangible
incentives to comply with corruption practices as well. This feature has several ramifications and
spreads throughout the system playing against its actual usefulness which is having real time
access to all public works from all parts of the country. If this principle is not met, users will not
find the tool useful and this would most definitely reduce engagement. Moreover, the lack of
institutional capacity in the organization also prevents the INFOBRAS team to provide added
value to the information they manage. Beyond descriptive statistics about the most basic
metrics, there is no actual data analysis to suggest alerts of irregular behavior. The lack of current
resources also plays in favor of this limited role that can’t go beyond the basic operation and
sustainability of the platform.

On the more technical side, the literature tends to point out that achieving interoperation and
good coordination for the success of IT related projects like INFOBRAS is usually challenging. In
the case of INFOBRAS, since the beginning the project had achieve a common vision form the
leaders of all the different agencies involved. This meant that they all found the goals of the
project of the CGO valuable and aligned with the goals of their organizations. This meant also
smooth coordination for the initial development of the project. Also it must be pointed out that
the technology chosen to link the different systems together (Web Services) has meant that only
small modifications have been made through time, which has made the IT management of the
project not an issue.

Like the literature suggests, the main problems in this type of transparency solutions come less
from the technological development side, and more from the actual access to the technology
and understanding it in order to be able to use it. The organization should be aware that it is
dealing with difficult external factors that play against the success of the platform, more
specifically: the lack of a transparency or openness culture that permeates governance
structures and operations, and also lacking of the adequate technical and social capabilities
needed for transparency initiatives on the ground (Bertot et al., 2010). In the case of INFOBRAS,
we find that the content in itself of the platform is quite complex and require some skills to really
make use of it. Judging the interface and how easy it is to use the platform is really beyond the
scope of this research, but it is pretty clear that the interest for this type of data is currently
somewhat limited in the country. This leads to a rather complex scenario where massive

12
participation is desired, but where the usability of the platform is still somewhat above a certain
skill threshold. Specifically for usability of the technology, the training of thousands of public
officials who register the information has been crucial, given that they provide the sustenance
for the platform to have a reason for existing. Moreover, given that there have been known
problems with how updated and comprehensive the data is, it is not clear how much useful the
internal clients and also other public servants will find the platform. The lack of some type of
measurement to asses this issue is troublesome. On the other hand this is even harder to asses
for the general public because of the lack of more refined indicators and measurements of
participation. Beyond some surveys conducted at some punctual public events, in general the
project should try to have more ambitious end user involvement tactics. Finally, coming back to
the concept of access to the technology: given how mobile is improving access to the internet,
especially in countries with complicated geographies and limited physical infrastructure like
Peru, it will also be necessary eventually to adapt the platform for mobile access since everyday
more people access the internet through phones instead of computers.

Another key aspect we feel is very important to asses is the degree of adoption the platform
might have. The literature proposes a series of theories and models to measure that provide
some insight around what elements motivate individuals to use technologies like information
systems. Like we mentioned before the TAM, D&M and UTAUT are some of these. Applying
these type of models requires actually conducting surveys with the end users, which is out of
the scope of this research. Nevertheless, we feel that we have collected some valuable
information that will help us asses to certain degree some of the most important dimensions
these models apply. Firstly, a very important variable for these types of studies is the perceived
usefulness of the systems. Like we mentioned before, there are several factors that play against
this, most importantly that the information the system presents might not be in good shape and
also not regularly updated. This pretty much defeats the purpose of a transparency tool which
should provide the most accurate and updated data regarding public works to be useful for
different users. Moreover, the fact that there is no punishment for not being thorough with the
information provided, and also the fact that there is no link between what happens with the
citizens input once made, only helps to portrait the platform as not very useful. It is also
important to pay attention to the perceived ease of use concept also. Given that there has not
been a lot of feedback from the users themselves and also their involvement in the
implementation has been minimal, there is a high chance that the organization thinks that is
already offering a friendly service when this could be further from the truth. For these two
aspects, involving the end users more and seeking more feedback from them is key for the future
sustainability of the platform. In terms of quality of the service and the quality of the
information, these are also troublesome aspects that need improvement. Keep up the quality
of the information registered is key, and this is probably the main concern in the current times,
and also the biggest challenge the back office has. The current team is aware that a lot of the
information inserted in the system requires a lot of manpower to process and verify, which only
makes life harder for the ones who insert the information and the ones who oversee it. This
does not benefit either part and makes the whole experience not very desirable. These quality
aspects need also to be taken into consideration if in the future high adoption of the system is
desired.

13
8. Conclusions

INFOBRAS presents itself as an e-government tool with a lot of potential for improving
transparency and fighting corruption in the country. However, our research points out that using
the word potential is more adequate at this point, given the several limitations we have found
with the actual implementation of the system so far.

Our first research objective was to better understand and describe the main challenges and
success factors present during the design and implementation process of INFOBRAS. In this
regard, there are clear success factors that the literature shows that we don’t see present in the
INFOBRAS experience. One of the main ones is the lack of continuous feedback from partner
users. Even though when this approach was used for the design and prototyping of the platform,
it has since not been seen as a priority and has not been applied anymore. This correlates highly
with friendliness of the service which was considered in the beginning but is not regarded as a
priority in the current state of the platform. We can add usefulness and ease of use of the
technology to that list also, since there are no reliable measurements to asses this. Another
important aspect is the absence of higher quality measurements of the service. Currently the
project depends a lot from simple metrics like number of users, page visitors, number and type
of public works, etc. Even when these indicators are useful for political and publicity reasons as
to portrait quick success for the platform, they fail to touch other core objectives of the project
like for example measuring how many control processes have started and succeeded from
information obtained from the platform, or let the citizens know if their input has actually been
useful for detecting irregularities. This type of measures would comply better with what the
platform is actually trying to do which is aiding in the fight against corruption in the country
while also providing bigger insights and incentives for improving the service. Moreover other
issues like budget and personnel constraints, lack of support from the top leadership in the last
couple of years and lack of institutional strength to enforce the legal framework that supports
the platform have also played against the sustainability of the project.

On the other side, we have identified that the main success factors in the development and
implementation of INFOBRAS have been the top leadership support within the CGO in the first
years of the platform and also the common vision shared with the partner agencies and other
public institutions that also felt the issue was relevant and well aligned with their own
institutional strategies. In other words INFOBRAS could have presented itself as a win-win
project to several high ranking institutions in the country, which also led it to be supported and
empowered with a legal framework that positions the platform as of mandatory use in the public
sector. Moreover, the choice of technology represents also a factor that has aided in the
sustainability and simple maintenance of the system, while the time and effort invested in
training thousands of public officials who as users insert the information into the system has
been also crucial in aiding towards improving the quality of the data.

In regards to our second research objective, or how close has come INFOBRAS in respect to
realizing its initial objectives, this will probably require further exploration and harder data to
asses, but so far we can suggest that it still has a long way to go. In regards to helping in
strengthening control and transparency of Peru’s public works through the register, articulation
and publicity of information, it’s certain that its influence has been more positive than negative,
but relying so much on very simple web metrics instead of more challenging indicators that tied
better with the core business of the CGO which is reducing corruption, certainly does not allow
us to measure the value it might have brought to the table. Also, is doesn’t take more than one
look to the CPI of Transparency International or the local news to grasp that corruption

14
perception stays the same or has even got worse in the last couple of years. In sum transparency
in itself has been definitely improved, but actual control thanks to the help of the platform is
debatable still at this point. On the other hand, where we think INFOBRAS has failed the most in
regards to its initial objectives is in incorporating citizens as allies in the execution control over
public works. It would be unfair for the CGO to say citizen engagement has been in their top
priorities. Also it could be understandable, since this task would require a lot of resources that
given the circumstances, are allocated in the maintenance of the platform rather than in its
expansion and growth. INFOBRAS has not really provided the incentives for users outside the
public sector to use the service. Our initial assessment for trying to build an adoption model
suggests that if the perspective of the users is not taken into account during the implementation
process, it would lead to poor adoption results, which could to be the particular case for
INFOBRAS.

In sum we would like go back to what we said in the beginning and repeat that ICTs in general
cannot solve the corruption problem by themselves. This require a more whole-of-government
strategy involving multiple sectors and measures. INFOBRAS is a good initiative with its heart
and its sight in the right direction. A little ambitious probably but certainly necessary. We can
only hope this few lines can contribute in better preparing it or the future, and help it take
benefit of the potential that ICTs can provide.

15
9. Bibliography

Andina (2016). Conozca a los 11 exgobernadores regionales acusados por corrupción. Retrieved
from http://www.andina.com.pe/agencia/noticia-conozca-a-los-11-exgobernadores-
regionales-acusados-corrupcion-593774.aspx

Basel Institute on Governance (2017). New perspectives in e-government and the prevention of
corruption. Working paper series No.23. Basel Institute on Governance.

Batara E., Nurmandi A. (2017). Are government employees adopting local e-government
transformation?: The need for having the right attitude, facilitating conditions and performance
expectations". Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy, Vol. 11 Issue: 4, pp.612-
638

Bertot J., Jaeger P., Grimes J. (2010). Using ICTs to create a culture of transparency: E-
government and social media as openness and anti-corruption tools for societies. Government
Information Quarterly 27 (2010) 264–271

Carter L., Weerakkody V. (2008). E-government adoption: A cultural comparison. Inf Syst Front
(2008) 10:473–482

Collins Dictionary (n.d) Crowdsourcing. Retrieved from

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/crowdsourcing

Contraloría General de la Republica (2015) La experiencia INFOBRAS: FORTALECIMIENTO DE LA

TRANSPARENCIA Y DEL CONTROL EN OBRAS PÚBLICAS. Contraloría General de la Republica:
Lima.

Dawes, S. (2008). The Evolution and Continuing Challenges of E-Governance. Public

Administration Review.

Dong Chul Shim & Tae Ho Eom (2008). E-Government and Anti-Corruption: Empirical Analysis of
International Data, International Journal of Public Administration, 31:3, 298-316

El Comercio (2015). ¿Cuál es el costo de la corrupción en el Perú? Retrieved from

https://elcomercio.pe/politica/actualidad/costo-corrupcion-peru-informe-385423

El Peruano (2017) La percepción de la corrupción. Retrieved from

http://www.elperuano.com.pe/noticia-la-percepcion-de-corrupcion-59752.aspx

Gestión (2016). Perú pierde por corrupción estatal unos US$ 3,000 millones al año, estima
Contraloría. Retrieved from https://gestion.pe/economia/peru-pierde-corrupcion-estatal-us-3-
000-millones-ano-estima-contraloria-114682

Gestión (2017). Contraloría: “Ser alcalde en el Perú es un gran negocio”. Retrieved from
https://gestion.pe/economia/contraloria-alcalde-peru-gran-negocio-142022

Gil R., Pardo T. (2005). E-government success factors: Mapping practical tools to theoretical
foundations. Government Information Quarterly, 22 (2005). 187–216.

GIZ (2013). Public Works Information System INFobras. Presentation.

Kim C. (2014) Anti-Corruption Initiatives and E-Government: A Cross-National Study. Public

Organiz Rev (2014) 14:385–396.

16
Mayaute F. (2015) Innovaciones del control gubernamental para potenciar la transparencia y la
participación ciudadana: el intercambio entre el INFOBRAS/Perú y el GEOCGR/Chile. XX
Congreso Internacional del CLAD sobre la Reforma del Estado y de la Administración Pública,
Lima, Perú, 10 - 13 nov. 2015.

Mistry J., Jalal A. (2012) An Empirical Analysis of the Relationship between e-government and
Corruption. The International Journal of Digital Accounting Research. Vol. 12, 2012, pp. 145 –
176

OECD (2003). Challenges for E-Government Development. 5th Forum on Reinventing

Government. Mexico City.

OECD (2013). Draft OECD Principles on Digital Government Strategies: Bringing Governments
Closer to Citizens and Businesses. Unpublished internal document.

Perú 21 (2017). ¡Alarmante! Corrupción cuesta entre 3.5% y 5% del PBI. Retrieved from
https://peru21.pe/economia/alarmante-corrupcion-cuesta-3-5-5-pbi-238496

Proetica (2017). Proética se pronuncia sobre los resultados de la Décima Encuesta Nacional sobre
Corrupción. Retrieved from http://www.proetica.org.pe/la-voz-de-proetica/proetica-se-
pronuncia-sobre-los-resultados-de-la-decima-encuesta-nacional-sobre-corrupcion/

Quiroz A. (2013) Historia de la corrupción en el Perú. IEP: Lima.

Rehman M., Kamal M., Esichaikul V. (2016) Adoption of e-Government Services in Pakistan: A
Comparative Study Between Online and Offline Users. Information Systems Management, 33:3,
248-267.

RPP Noticias (2014). Procuraduría: 92% de alcaldes del Perú son investigados por corrupción.
Retrieved from http://rpp.pe/politica/actualidad/procuraduria-92-de-alcaldes-del-peru-son-
investigados-por-corrupcion-noticia-708399

RPP Noticias (2016). Contraloría detectó a 25 mil funcionarios implicados en casos de corrupción.
Retrieved from http://rpp.pe/politica/judiciales/contraloria-detecto-a-25-mil-funcionarios-
implicados-en-casos-de-corrupcion-noticia-959565

Signore, O., Chesi, F., Pallotti M. (2005). E-Government: Challenges and Opportunities. CMG Italy
– XIX Annual Conference. Florence.

Singh Kalsi N., Kiran R. (2013). E-governance success factors: An analysis of e-governance
initiatives of ten major states of India Success. International Journal of Public Sector
Management, Vol. 26 Issue: 4. 320-336.

Techterms (n.d.). Web Service. Retrieved from https://techterms.com/definition/web_service

The Wold Bank (2016) Digital Dividends. The World Bank: Washington DC.

UN (2016) E-government survey 2016. United Nations: New York.

UNDP (2006). Fighting Corruption with e-Government Applications. AP DIP e- Note 8. UNDP.

Vera R. (2014) La participación ciudadana en el control de las obras públicas: el caso de Infobras.
Actualidad Gubernamental, Nº 68 – Junio 2014.

17
10. Interviews conducted:

Miriam Romero.

Departamento de Estudios e Investigaciones.

Contraloría General de la República.

Time: 0:50 h.

Date: 05.01.18

Medium: Telephone

18