The e-government and e-procurement situation in the GCC countries - Research Paper Example

The e-government and e-procurement situation in the GCC countries Introduction This paper discusses the situation pertaining to E-Government and E-Procurement in GCC countries (Gulf Cooperation Council) which consists of the following countries as shown in the map below (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Sultanate of Oman). Due to the strategic, geopolitical and economic factors, outside observers regard the Gulf region as an area of vital interest. As such, threat perceptions relating to Gulfs commercial viability have become increasingly salient not only for the Gulf States but for the international community as whole in the light of increasingly globalised commercial transactions. Indeed the ‘oil dimension’ combined with the ‘geostrategic dimension’ have shaped and framed the policies of many countries concerning the Gulf. It is important to understand how the GCC state will produce a new regional order that is currently taking shape. Initially, they must identify the dynamics that affect their security. This will require a review of how the Peninsula Shield force could be re-structured, and of how quickly the force might be made operational; and more importantly, of how much commitment the Gulf states will demonstrate in the implementation of collective regional E-government and E-Procurement Pacts. Furthermore, the GCC should examine how it might benefit from the experiences of other regional and international security and political bodies – including the European Union (EU), NATO and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). (1) The diagram1 below shows the promising economy of the GCC region with in the next decade. However it should be noted that competition from other oil producing nations and the discovery of new oil reserves could mean that the GCC nations will have to rely to better E- government methods leading to IT governance eventually. There is a growing need for the improvement of the E-procurement situation in the GCC countries as well. Oman has a high level of economic growth and has a free economy.The new trade and investment laws provide better degrees of vitality and flexibility to E-commerce and the government actively participates in the E commerce initiatives to provide for better business conditions (2). Qatar is more closed up and does not allow FDI in some sectors like: banking, insurance, real estate, commercial agencies. Further more not more than 40% of foreign ownership is allowed unless there is a sector like: Agriculture, industry, health, education, tourism, leisure and development of natural resources, energy and mining (2). The UAE is the fastest growing economy with the recent government’s allotment of $13.4 billion towards the development of the non-oil sector, much of which will be spent on telecommunications and information technology. A recent initiative is the Dubai Internet City which is a great move to UAE’s future internet economy (2). Bahrain is an important business centre and is only recently warming up in the internet race. It is located half way between the time zones of East and West, and give that the GCC countries (mostly import oriented) have an estimated population of more than 19 million, and added 100 million to adjoining neighboring countries that leads to enormous consumer bases potential. It is reported that the Bahrain government is striving towards E-procurement in the sectors of business & financial services, tourism, information technology, telecommunications, healthcare & education (2). In a similar vein Saudi Arabia has followed suit and an even better climate is found in Kuwait where as any Kuwaiti or GCC national over 21 years of age can carry commerce in Kuwait. In Kuwait public procurement is dealt with government of law 37 of 1964, Law 18 of 1970 and Law 81 of 1977. There is no internet procedure for most of the tendering procedures and this has yet to change to promote public procurement (2). 2. Role of Internet and the other emerging ICT ways of communication in facilitating many of day-to-day applications in our life The late 20th century marked the start of an innovative method for delivery and access of government services and the manner by which citizens throughout the world communicate with elected and public officials. This paper provides an overview of the manner in which technology is utilized to equip governments with the necessary tools to incorporate technology into campaigns-government and e-procurement. Technology, can be incorporated in an inexpensive manner and prove to be effective and useful in 21st century e-government. Technology in the political process has changed the government mechanisms in the West and now this trend is moving towards the GCC countries. The need to connect citizens directly with representatives increased pressure for a direct democratic form of government. Technology has facilitated the means for citizens to have access to government and elected officials. In the West the 1990s government services were made available over the Internet to increase efficiency and effectiveness. Due to the interactivity that the Internet provides representatives are more easily accessible and the lines of communication have been strengthened. The reason this has become a pivotal concern for the region is simple, the world is fast becoming a Global village commercially and politically. The GCC region cannot afford to lay back in the race to the Global village. Johnson (3) argues that technology has enabled for citizens to have direct access to representatives and political process without relying on intermediaries’ thereby increasing citizen participation in the political process (3). The revolution has not restricted itself to the commercial arena though and according to Browning (4) the Internet has facilitated access to information and connection between officials and constituents. For the Oil rich GCC nations technology has increased the reach of citizens to officials and vice versa. Technology has influenced the public sector in a multitude of ways from the method in which government entities deliver services to their constituencies, to the manner that public sector workers retrieve and process information to complete day-to-day job-related tasks. More importantly though is the effect that technology has had on the means of communication between officials, government employees, and citizens. For the GCC nations it can be seen from the discussions in the paragraphs below that there has been a shift from peer to peer connections to networked environments and the local procurement and commercial companies are already realizing the benefits in the form of decreased amount of time, money, and human resources needed to ensure that systems function accordingly. Technology serves as a means to ease the operation of systems, processes, procedures, but also facilitate access to and the dissemination of information. In essence, information systems have tuned and oiled the government machinery to provide efficient services to both the employees and the constituents it serves (5). Due to the links formulated in response to the new technological wave, citizen participation is now more proactive. Digital connections available through work and home computers, cell phones, and PDA’s present individuals easy access and quick response time to a multitude of sources of information at the click of button. At the same time, this direct communication link has revamped the traditional means by which politicians and activists interact (5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12). Citizen participation is a means by which citizens engage at various levels of the decision-making process whether in neighborhood associations, community boards, local, state or federal government. This type of civic engagement is what Putnam (13) refers to as social capital, which involves a social network, personal relationships were trust, and reciprocity exists. Although revised at various times during the 20th century, social capital emphasizes the importance of social ties to enhance an individual’s life. In addition, individuals who engage in civic activities, which are considered part of the fabric of social capital, have stake in some issue that affects them and their quality of life. Putnam (13) argues that being involved in the community whether in a homeowner’s association, a bowling league, or some other activity that requires interaction with other from the community, then an individual’s society boasts the benefits of social and bonding capital. It should also be noted that the technology wave in the GCC promises a more efficient government and increased levels of accountability as close watch is kept on government agencies to ensure that expenses are commensurate with delivery of services. In addition, technology has proved instrumental in collaborative efforts, joint ventures, and partnerships between various levels of government, agencies, and various other organizations with in the GCC. Technology has facilitated access to government and increased an indirect form of participation between the people and officials. During the course of the past decade, the struggle between a representative democracy and direct democracy has been exacerbated by the access that technology provides citizens to government and government to its citizens. Internet has elevated the level of communication and sophistication required in public and political exchanges. Technology has increased access but it has depersonalized the relationship between citizens and officials, unless officials or candidates seek direct connection with an individual. 3. The e-Government concept and applications The revolution of the internet in the mid-90s dramatically spread in all countries around the world. More and more countries in recent years have expanded their communications with citizens by using the World-Wide Web. While the digital age has revolutionized the business to business (B2B) as well as the business-to-customer (B2C) relationship, the same technology has affected government-citizen, government-government and government-enterprise relationships. Such transformation was the development of electronic government. In the Dictionary of Politics and Government, the electronic government (e-government) is defined as ‘government services made available to the public by electronic means such as the internet’. (14) Defined Electronic government or digital government as: ‘The initiative taken by government agencies and organizations to use the internet technology in increasing their working effectiveness and efficiency. It is a permanent commitment made by the government to improve the relationship between the private citizen and the public sector through enhanced, cost-effective, and efficient delivery of services, information, and knowledge’. E-government means how government agencies have effectively developed computerized systems such issuing a driver’s license, birthday certificates, passports, e-transactions, electronic police fines, electricity bills, tax payments .etc. This trend has considerably affected the governance mechanisms in the GCC region. E-government, in a driver’s license example means the agency also has responsibility to make sure that the person is fit to drive. (15) ( (Virgillio L. Pena, 2007) defined e-government as a delivering government services using information technology whereas e-governance is defined as transforming the relationship between governments and their citizens through the use of information technology. Unlike e-government, e-governance, a wider term than e-government, refers to the use of IT/IS by public sectors to improve services delivery, encourage citizen participation in the decision-making process and making government more accountable, transparent and effective (www.Portal.unesco.org). For the GCC region the main goals of e-governance are to provide better services delivery, increase government transparently in order to reduce corruption, increase citizens’ participation in democratic practices like, credibility and accountability. .In a broad sense, E-government is defined as the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) to improve the activities of public sector organizations and their agents. Its primary purpose is to improve the business of government and governmental agencies (16) (UN E-Government Survey 2008). The adoption of e-government has dramatically increased in many countries particularly the GCC region, However the GCC region has not yet attained IT governance which can further alleviate its problems in joining the international race. IT Governance in government means that ‘the state government is effectively using information technology in all lines of business and leveraging capabilities across state government appropriately to not only avoid unnecessary or redundant investments, but to enhance appropriate cross boundary interoperability (19). The GCC countries have just attained the advent of E-Government the implementation of which is an agenda priority for many countries. The benefits of electronic government are increasingly recognized by both governments and citizens. Some of the benefits for the GCC states are identified as follows (2). • Remove boundaries: Electronic government removes boundaries between government and citizens, ‘the government without walls’. High level of government-citizen transparency y is gained through e-government; • Enhance accessibility: Visiting a government office can be a difficult task for many people; the Internet offers a potential solution to access to information and government services; • Improve service quality: The mission of e-government is to improve government service quality for all citizens. Higher quality and reliable services can be achieved through e-government. • Improve reputation for the GCC region: E-government helps people around the world to visit and invest in the country. • Greater citizen participation: Trust is built through transparency between government and citizen by using the potential of e-government. IT makes it easier for citizens to contribute. The dual mission of the Dubai e-Government is stated by Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the governor of Dubai ‘to ease the lives of people and business interacting with Government and to contribute in establishing Dubai as a leading economic hub’ (20). • Reduce cost: According to the Economist magazine, the potential savings of implementing e-government could be as much as $ 110 billion and 144 billion English Pounds in US and Europe respectively (21) (Symonds, 2000). For example e-government improves the coordination of authorities at different tiers of government and thus enhances the speed and efficiency of operations and lowers cost. This proposition can be supported by examples from around the world. In Australia; Queensland IT Minister Robert Schwarter states that the use of e-Governament is expected to save taxpayers at least AU$ 135 million a year, (22) (Renai LeMay, 2006), (www.zdnet.com.au). Due to effective infrastructure, networks and data center, the Queensland Government expects to save between $41 million and $ 74 million annually. The figure is expected to increase by an additional saving of $ 95 million to $ 173 million per annum after implementation of up-front investment in Queensland’s ICT Smart Governance (www.Sdpc.gld.gor.au). Likewise, the target of a major telecommunication private company is to reduce 25 to 35 per cent cost of the $ 900 million it spends annually in ICT capital and operating expenditure. • Improve relationship with citizens: E-government changes the structure and function of the traditional bureaucratic model to a more extra-government and intra-government communications model (23) (Snellen, 2000), (24) (Tapscott, 1995). The ‘citizen-centric’ model is the main strategy in e-government in UAE including ‘result-oriented’ and ‘market-based’ (25). 4. The Current Status of E-Government in the World While developed countries have taken a leading role in implementation of e-government, other countries still face difficulty in doing so. The lack of sufficient capital to build IT infrastructure, the lack of sufficient knowledge or skills necessarily to establish e-government, the low income, development status and region are among critical factors that influence the implementation of e-government in developing countries (14, 26). According to the (16) (United Nations E-Government Survey 2008), though governments are increasingly implement e-government around the world, there are large differences between the five regions in terms of e-government readiness, with Europe (0.6490) as a leading region, followed by the Americas (0.4936), Asia (0.4470). Oceania (0.4338) and Africa (0.2739). Asia and Oceania are slightly below the world average (0.4514), while Africa lags far behind. Moreover, while European countries make up 70 per cent of the top 35 countries in terms of e-government readiness, there are no countries in the top 35 from Africa, the Caribbean, Central American, Central Asian, South American and Southern Asian regions. While the United States is well recognized as a leading country in advanced technology, Sweden (0.9157) surpassed it as the leader this year 2008. Denmark (0.9134) and Norway (0.8921) have taken the second and the third place respectively. Thus, three Scandinavians countries have taken the first three top spots in the 2008 Survey while the United States (0.8644) has ranked fourth. The critical success factors in the European countries are due to their investment in infrastructure and connectively. The credit goes to broadband infrastructure initiative. According to another study (27), Canada was found to be playing a leading role in e-government implementation. The remaining top 10 countries were (in order): Singapore, the United States, Australia, Denmark, the United Kingdom, Finland, Hong Kong, Germany and Ireland. In fact, the United States, Australia, Singapore and Canada are the early leaders to implement e-government while the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, Norway, Hong Kong, and New Zealand followed, taking the advantage of the digital information age. In a recent study, (16) (UN 2008 Survey), however, the United States scored the highest on the e-participation index. E-information, e-consultation and citizen-centric model are the main reasons for Americans to participate with their government. The Republic of Korea ranked the second (0.9773) as it performed extremely well in the e-consultation assessment. The third place went to both France and Denmark (0.9318). 5. E-procurement applications E-procurement can include online commerce through a number of mediums like the internet itself and also other information and networking systems, such as Electronic Data Interchange and Enterprise Resource Planning. This can involve auctions and bidding. The GCC has seen the growth of E-procurement as a new trend in public procurement. E-procurement models can be achieved through the value chain of Indent Management, e-Tendering, e-Auctioning, Vendor Management, Catalogue Management, Contract Management, Web-based ERP (Electronic Resource Planning), E-MRO (Maintenance, Repair and Operating), E-sourcing, E--reverse auctioning and E-informing (29). This section is aimed at arriving at a conceptual framework to investigate the impact of Internet upon the GCC export intermediaries, in terms of activities (traditional and new), matching with what the suppliers’ think and then suggest the future of export intermediaries (28). At times the so called digitalization of these export marketing tasks means that new forms of marketing activity will be brought about in the marketing channel along with new forms of activity specialization amongst the business actors. The current business scenario particularly in the arena of E-procurement has found its way to the cyber world bringing a radical shift in the current international business channels (29). The internet has changed the face of obtaining, processing and transmitting of business information in the sense of what Houmann (28) has called “possibilities of a virtual, global presence have been claimed to change the economies of time and space, with remarkable consequences for current international business practices…, establishing a virtual presence for completing transactions through a site on the world wide web (www) can, potentially, create an instant global and near-frictionless exchange environment, with customers worldwide minimizing end-users' transaction costs and establishing direct rather than indirect channel structures.” According to Houmann (28) this has enabled the GCC exporters to interact directly with and exploit the potential of foreign consumer bases. This has led to a reallocation of the activities currently in the ambit of export market intermediaries to other parties in the export marketing channel. The emergence of the internet as a commercial platform along with the possibilities of information exchange inherent in electronic networks has added value to the products and services in terms of new content in market offerings. This is the age of the internet as a shopping place has indeed revolutionised by changing the market scenario for the businesses as well as for the consumers. This has greatly aided in the popularity among the people of the idea of E-commerce as businesses clamour to gain popularity through “web-vertising” and online promotions aimed at targeting consumer value and satisfaction (30). This is the age of the technologically driven market place of today where there are countless promotional messages, appeals, advertisements and attractions which await the consumers as they enter the cyber world. 6. Conventional modes of E-procurement (31) (Kulviwat 2004:245-253 citing Alderson, 1957) has described Public Procurement as based on the functionalist theory on marketing systems and the export intermediary as an “institutional mode, which provides a bundle of activities for exporters, intra-market distributors and end-users as principal actors in the export marketing channel (32)”. Public procurement Marketing channels are often perceived as generic channels of marketing activities. (28) (Bucklin, 1966 cited by Houmann, 2005). Another definition for the Public procurement /intermediation would be “an institutional arrangement for the purpose of facilitating the transfer of goods and services from the exporters' market to the marketing channel of the target country (33)(citing Root, 1987)”. E-procurement may be held to have and include many contexts of activities and it should be noted that over all the export intermediaries have a competitive advantage in information asymmetry, (28, 31) so these activities can be briefly described as “accumulation, allocation, assorting and sorting out” of the buyers and sellers. Houmann (28) describes them further as “Accumulation is the building up of homogeneity from heterogeneous supplies. Allocation is the breaking up of homogenous supplies to meet the heterogeneous needs of buyers. Sorting out and assorting concern the breaking up of a collection into its component parts and building a heterogeneous collection.” Of course then it worth pointing out that these activities will often be linked to different supply tasks and demand tasks (28) (Anderson and Coughlan, 1987 cited by Houmann 2005). Therefore depending upon the transaction costs that they might entail they can be focusing upon a variety of functions based on the nature of their businesses. This hybrid can consist of the elements of Administration, Marketing and Logistics. Therefore as far as marketing is concerned (28) states that “the export intermediary, who acts as an agent for buyers and exporters with diverging cultural backgrounds, also serves the function of actively adjusting to both exporters' and buyers' needs in this communication process, smoothing out misunderstandings arising from cultural distance. The process of accumulating and constantly developing knowledge on the needs of exchange partners involves not only searching for and processing information, but also fitting it into the present stock of knowledge of the export intermediary” (28). The Export intermediary can also be involved in the administration aspect of the “activity bundle” and this would relate to “ contractual and control aspects, such as handling ownership issues, including commercial transactions, and documentation from exporting manufacturers, customers and such third parties as freight forwarders, governments and banks, managing the risk exposure from handling currency flows. Other issues include administrative concerns, e.g. local service agreements, warrants, adjusting assortments, representation of the firm, etc”. Finally the issue of the logistics would entail the regulation of the physical flow of goods and services which would include coping with “both international issues (shipment and customs declaration) and national distribution and inventory management issues (warehousing, local shipment)” (28). 7. The modern Public and private procurement Scenario The Internet is marked as a major development of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and according to the January estimates from the (34) the worldwide number of Internet users surpassed 1 billion in 2005 and a 2 billion Internet users milestone is expected in 2011. Furthermore the Internet plays a significant role in the E-procurement sector by attracting foreign consumer bases and business contacts and facilitating their marketing and strategic planning. Furthermore “the significance of the Internet as a commercial channel in the context of consumer information search and provision has been well recognized in previous studies” (28). These studies suggest that it is virtually impossible for export organizations to overlook the Internet in their marketing mixes due to its advantages, which include global accessibility, convenience in updating, real-time information service, interactive communications features and unique customization capabilities” (28). 8. Potential Challenges of E-governance in Public Sectors of the GCC identified from the literature Firstly the debate facing many European governments’ on-line agenda, is how to precede best with integration as the existing architectures do not readily support enterprise-wide integration; on-line government (35). Furthermore most public institutions in the GCC often come across as ‘stove pipes’ or ‘isolated islands of technology’ (36). Furthermore techniques like Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) technologies are expensive and problematic solution (37), (38) (Sutherland & Willem, 2002). Many authors are skeptical though whether the GCC situation can be helped by E-Government as it is believed that problems are multiplied in the public sectors. (39) and many view the traditional civil service as a legacy of rigid bureaucracy, established illogical routine tasks and lack of coordination of different information systems in the pubic sector’ (40). 9. Public Sector Procurements in GCC In a study conducted in 2002 of the Gulf Cooperation Council (41) pertaining to e-Commerce, internet laws and regulations, trade, internet communications, online business security, e-Payments, and concerns and barriers to the adoption of e-Commerce by users in the business, consumer and government sectors of the GCC countries, in order to develop a high level plan of action for the GCC countries for growing e-Commerce in the region. In this vein the magnitude of the of the e-Commerce market and the concerns and obstacles facing private and public sector firms in the GCC region, in adoption of e-Procurement and e-Government were examined. It was stated that the assessment of the communication barriers to the growth of e-Commerce, and the liberalization of the internet service providers policies in the GCC. It was also recommended that there should be a policy of standardizing the domain name registration procedures in the GCC region, reinforcing trust through security and the adoption of an e-Payment model for use in the GCC countries. This was recommended to have been developed through the development of a better legal framework for the development of laws and regulations for supporting e-Commerce in the GCC region. Recommendation of a common opinion that the GCC countries could take in relation to the plan to include e-Commerce within the ambit of the WTO. It has been found that there is high Business to consumer commericial activity in the region. In the (41) report alone it was found that “17% of internet users reported shopping online, and that on average they spent $1068 million annually online. Based on this finding, and extrapolating it over the entire GCC internet user population, they estimated statistically (at 90% confidence levels) that the total B2C trade in the GCC to be between $310-650 m. On the assumption that internet penetration in the GCC region would double by 2005, this estimate is expected to double between $620-1.3 billion by 2005.” (41) It has also been stated that currently the position of public procurement is that based on the strength of the key industry players, alongwith an import statistics and market size estimates, it could be estimated that the current total B2B trade in the region was between $3.5-4.2 billion, of which the automotive industry, the oil industry and IT industry accounted for the bulk of the online commerce/E-procurements. In fact given the speed with which the public procurements in the GCC public sector were increasing it could easily be said that Oil, Petrochemical and Government sectors would be likely to have their B2B trade in the region could grow to $7.25-9.15 b by 2005 (2). In 2002 alone it was predicted that E-procurement in the public sector would account to at least 10% of Government purchase of goods and services by 2005. This would ultimately lead to the growth of e-Commerce within the Petrochemical industry, and the validity of the estimate of e-Commerce usage in the automotive industry. It has also been stated in research that most of the GCC countries have very low internet penetration levels currently and do experience high subscriber growth levels, they believe it is possible to conservatively state that the total number of internet users in the region would at least double by April 2005. Assuming that the average value of products purchased over the net remains unchanged, and that 17% (the current median of our sample) of the internet users buy products over the net, the value of B2C trade can be assumed to go up to about $1 billion by 2005. Basin our estimates on reported number of internet subscribers per country, the current and projected median B2C trade values in the GCC countries are as follows (2) : Estimated B2C value US$ Saudi Arabia Bahrain Oman Kuwait Qatar UAE 2002 278 15 22 27 8 131 2005 556 30 44 54 16 262 Today the total B2C e-Commerce trade in the GCC region accounts for roughly 10% of the total commercial trade (2). The main barriers for the implementation of E-government and E-procurement in the GCC have been identified to be the following (2, 41). Little usage of the internet for e-Commerce in the region and bulk of the e-Commerce in the region being EDI based. (41) Estimated that a fifth of the firms involved are actively considering the use of the internet for e-Procurement activities within the next five years. Furthermore it can be seen that most of the recent e-Commerce in the region related to firms in the automobile, IT and other such sectors, for placing orders electronically with their respective principals and parent companies. E-government is not uniformly popular amongst the GCC players and E-procurement is more popular with Dubai e-Government in online Government procurement, and Saudi Aramco from the oil sector. Companies like the Qatar National Bank have shown relatively small level of transactions over the net related to e-Government activities (2). Based on the figures above it has been stated in (41) that the “UAE and Saudi Arabia are about 3 years behind the US in adoption of e-Commerce (where the e-Commerce value is about 3% of the GDP), while Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain are at least 3 years behind other leading countries like UK, Australia and Singapore (where the e-Commerce value is about 1% of the GDP). The reason for projecting a relatively higher percentage for Saudi Arabia, despite the current low level of adoption of e-Commerce, is that they expect the dominant firms in the country like Saudi Aramco and Sabic to have become big users of e-Commerce by 2008) Macro E-Procurement Estimates (41): Saudi Arabia Bahrain Oman Kuwait Qatar UAE GDP in US dollars 170500 8299 19300 34150 15100 59000 B2B EC Value (US$m) 5115 83 193 342 151 1770 The table below shows the recent projected value of the E-commerce in the following main industries in the GCC. (41) 10. The way ahead for E-procurement and E-Government in the GCC states It can be seen from a perusal of the literature and estimates that the key business challenges come in the form of Increasing competition, The need to improve profitability, and The pressure to meet higher quality expectations of customers, by the GCC firms and the governments. By achieving these objectives these GCC firms and their governments should be able to achieve an enhanced geographical coverage, and improved marketing effectiveness (2). The challenges also come in the form of the security issues, absence of coherent cyber laws supporting e-Transactions, and lack of adequate customer interest in using the internet for business. There are also issues of trust and business integrity. There were cyber issues pertaining to potential exposure of the internal network by going online, the possible compromise of information sent over the internet (2). If a thorough transition to E-procurement mechanisms is seen for the public sectors there is a cost issue for the public purses and further technological and organizational nuances. There is a lack of Ecosystems in the industry where as the firms refuse to share internal information and to improve these processes. The governments which have been surveyed feel that “Security and technology issues were the key obstacles identified by the Government agencies during the study. The lack of appropriate technology infrastructure, from the perspective of adequacy and integration with other agencies, were perceived to be the key barriers to offering effective”. (41) For the public procurement agencies this is further complicated by “the fear that going online might compromise internal security, along with issues related to confidentiality of information as well as confirmation of the identity of the transacting entities, and were considered to be major trust issues”. (41) 11. Conclusion The GCC governments can play their part by adopting a properly technological and legal framework to encourage E-Government and E-procurement particularly in the matter of Communications, Security, Laws and Regulations, and Payments. There has to be a move towards this by the GCC Governments who should ideally adopt a strategy that considers both the infrastructure and demand aspects of e-Commerce, to boost consumer confidence (2). E Procurement has a long way to go here for the public sector as the existing systems will need a physical and organizational overhaul. These Governments are better advised to follow international models like the ITOL in Australia, where they successfully encouraged the growth of exchanges like the AANX for the automotive industry, the PECC for the pharmaceutical industry and the BuyUSA portal, which is a Government of USA initiative to project local firms to the world. (2) Some similar initiatives are on their way however in the GCC region therefore these governments are better advised to shift their purchases online; by a certain target date.This can bring a definite move forward for E-procurements and E-governance in the region. References (1). 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