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Rural Water Supply Corruption in Ethiopia 149
that found in other parts of the construction industry: contractors
may fail to build to specification, concealing substandard work and
materials or paying officials to ignore it. Or oversight officials may
demand payments to ignore instances where specifications are not
adhered to. Fraudulent invoicing and documentation is another common
problem.
Such practices help contractors to minimize costs and increase profit,
but the outcome may be poor-quality work that affects the reliability
and quality of services. Poor quality may be visible, as in the case of a
dam or community tap, or it may be invisible absent a physical audit.
Groundwater development is a case in point: A contractor that drills a
shallow borehole and then claims payment for a deeper one, or who
installs substandard materials inside the borehole and claims otherwise,
can “hide” bad practice beneath the ground. Corruption then becomes
difficult to detect.
In Ethiopia, groundwater development to meet dispersed rural
demand underpins the UAP. Yet despite massive (and accelerating)
investment in borehole drilling (as shown previously in table 4.1), little
is known about corruption in drilling and water point construction.
Could this be a serious problem, or is this part of the value chain reasonably
clean?
The evaluation approach. To answer this question, the study team carried
out a study of 26 boreholes in Oromia and SNNPR in tandem with
water point interviews. The study had two main elements:
• A postconstruction technical investigation, using down-the-borehole
CCTV equipment to assess what had actually been constructed.
Findings were then compared with contract specifications, borehole
completion reports, and final invoices to ascertain whether (a) what
was actually built matched the design specification; and (b) what was
claimed, or invoiced, matched what was actually built. In addition,
data on borehole construction costs were analyzed to identify areas
where major savings could potentially be made through corrupt
practices.
• A village survey, including (a) the collection of basic information on
village characteristics; (b) an assessment of the community development
process in relation to water point planning and management; and
(c) a simple assessment of borehole performance in terms of functionality,
water availability, and water quality. In addition, a perception