Alexandra Wrage, president and founder of TRACE International.

A couple years ago when Gonzalo Guzman was working as an anti-corruption in-house counsel for GlaxoSmithKline, the company included in its compliance protocol that general managers in each country ask employees to use government services online if possible, rather than engage in person.

Employees and the British company loved the idea, Guzman recounted, because it meant fewer face-to-face meetings over visas, customs, taxes, licenses or other items where a government official could demand a bribe.

GlaxoSmithKline funded a study by the Basel Institute on Governance, at the University of Basel in Switzerland, which reported on a causal link between using e-government services and reducing corruption. Then Guzman mentioned the policy at a 2018 TRACE International conference, where in-house counsel are always looking for new ways to combat bribery.

“Something was still missing,” Guzman recalled. “There was no catalog or easy way to find e-government services across countries. Each employee just had to search for them every time.”

TRACE president Alexandra Wrage and her staff jumped on the idea of cataloging e-government services around the world.

Wrage said the project took over nine months to complete, with staffer Mike Juan in Manila working full time supported by other members in the Annapolis, Maryland, headquarters as needed.

“In a few cases—and Hong Kong stands out here—we reached out to the responsible party and they were extraordinarily helpful in directing us to all e-government options,” she said. “In most cases, however, it was a painstaking process of searching government websites, country-by-country and then government service-by-government service.”

Sometimes, she said, it took up to a week to finish a single country.

The result came in February when TRACE announced the launch of its new online tool: the TRACE e-Gov Portal. It is the first comprehensive collection of over 15,000 links to e-government services in 90-plus countries.

The site is divided into categories, such as procurement, customs, travel and such, and the design allows for the addition of new links as more countries come on board with digital services. “We're counting on the global business and compliance communities, as well as individual governments, to help us expand and maintain this public database,” Wrage said.

But one of the best features is that TRACE opened the site to the public, so any company, law firm or individual can use it.

Wrage, a frequent international traveler in her job, immediately saw the value. “Imagine arriving late at night in the largely closed airport of a challenging country and facing a single immigration officer,” she said.

Wrage continued, “You've been told that visas are available upon arrival, but the 'rules' have suddenly shifted and the officer starts referring to extra fees for late processing … [and] he's intimating he'll just go home.” With e-government, she said, “You can go online, typically just 24 hours before your arrival in a country, upload the requested information and the visa is delivered by email to be printed out, or even scanned at immigration upon arrival.”

Guzman, who eight months ago joined Netherlands-based Unilever as general counsel for anti-corruption and third-party compliance in Latin America, said he has begun introducing the policy there.

Maria Arbona, the Philadelphia-based manager of governance, external engagement, anti-bribery and corruption for GlaxoSmithKline, said she welcomed the portal. Arbona said the company is exploring how it can best “share this new resource with the business.”

She added, “I was encouraged to see the release of TRACE's e-Gov Portal and consider it a positive next step in using e-government solutions to reduce corruption.”

Another in-house counsel agreed. Jonathan Drimmer, deputy general counsel and chief compliance officer of Toronto-based Barrick Gold Corp., said he also is “trying to identify ways to integrate it into our compliance program. We haven't used it yet, but are in the process of figuring out how.”

Drimmer called the portal “a great initiative, and a concept for which I am highly supportive.”

As for Wrage, she knew she was on to something good “when I started hearing people praise traffic cameras. As vilified as those little devices are, in countries with high levels of police corruption, receiving and paying your ticket by mail is widely preferred to an awkward, possibly dangerous, exchange with a police officer on the side of a dark, isolated road.”

The portal hasn't gotten much press yet, Wrage said, because e-government isn't a very sexy topic. But after she wrote a short article for Forbes about the portal, Wrage said representatives of several countries called her to boast about their increased use of e-government.

She said Ukraine has estimated its e-procurement platform could save that country $1 billion per year.  

“From our perspective, it's a chance to avoid a shakedown,” Wrage said. “From theirs, it's a chance to address the lost revenue associated with bribe-tainted contracts when shoddy goods sell at inflated prices.”

Her bottom-line: “Solutions that companies, governments and civil society can all get behind are worth a closer look.”