Engineering: issues, challenges and opportunities for development ...

ENGINEERING: ISSUES CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR DEVELOPMENTEngineers can take steps at four levels to help bring aboutthe reduction of corruption: government, project, corporateand individual. The following boxes outline the stepsat each level. Taking these steps would result in materialprogress towards an industry in which corruption does notkill.Reducing corruption in infrastructure projects at the project levelCorruption on infrastructure projects is a complex problem.It may occur in the form of bribery, extortion, fraud orcollusion. It can take place during any phase of a project,including project identification, planning, financing,design, tender, execution, operation and maintenance. Ineach project phase, corruption may involve any one ormore of the government, project owner, funders, consultants,contractors, sub-contractors, suppliers, joint venturepartners and agents. It may occur at any level of the contractualstructure. Furthermore, corruption is concealedand those aware of it are either complicit in it or reluctantto report it. This makes it more difficult to detect.There is no single or simple method by which to preventsuch corruption. As with safety and quality issues, corruptionshould be addressed by the use of a comprehensivesystem, which combines a number of integrated measures.All infrastructure projects involve engineers at a seniordecision-making level throughout the project cycle. Engineerscan therefore either implement or recommend theimplementation of effective anti-corruption measures atproject level. These measures should include:■Independent assessment: An independent assessorshould be appointed, on a full-time or part-time basis,whose duty is to detect and report corruption for theduration of the project. He/she should be suitablyskilled, be nominated by an independent organization,and owe his/her duty to all participants in the project.■Pre-contract disclosure of information: The majorproject participants should provide each other withrelevant information at an early stage in the projectprocess with the purpose of helping to reveal and sominimize the risk of corruption. Such informationshould relate to their principal shareholders, officers,financial status, agents, joint venture partners, majorsub-contractors, criminal convictions and debarment.■anti-corruption Contractualcommitments: The projectparticipants should provide anti-corruption contractualcommitments to each other, which expressly cover themain types of corruption. Remedies should be specifiedin the event of breach of these commitments.■ Government anti-corruption commitments:Government departments should provide an anticorruptioncommitment whereby the departmentagrees to take steps to minimize extortion by its officers,to appoint a senior manager to whom complaints ofextortion can be made, and to publicize a list of fees andtime-scales which should properly apply to governmentprocedures.■Transparency: Critical project information on theidentification, financing, procurement, execution andmaintenance of the project should be publicly disclosedon a website.■ Raising awareness: Individuals involved in the projectshould be made aware, through publicity and training,of what constitutes corruption, and of the risks ofpersonal involvement in corruption.■ Funder involvement: Details of the funding termsand conditions, and any changes to these, should bepublicly disclosed. The independent assessor shouldmake regular reports to the funders on his activities,and report any suspected corruption to them.■ Compliance programme: The project participantsshould be required to take all reasonable steps to ensurecompliance by the company and its management andstaff with the project’s anti-corruption requirements.■ Reporting: Procedures should be implemented on theproject for confidential reporting by project participantsand members of the public. The independent assessorshould have a duty to report suspected corruption tothe criminal authorities.■ Enforcement: There must be a real threat of enforcement.Civil enforcement should be implemented under theanti-corruption commitments. Criminal enforcementshould be implemented by the criminal authoritiesafter receiving reports from the independent assessor,project participants or members of the public.The Project Anti-Corruption System (PACS) is an integratedand comprehensive system published by the GlobalInfrastructure Anti Corruption Centre (GIACC) to assistin the prevention of corruption on construction projects.It utilizes the above measures, and provides templates toenable these measures to be implemented.Reducing corruption in infrastructure projects at the individual levelEngineers are professionals in their personal capacity. Theirprofessional qualification is a badge not only of their skill,but also of their personal integrity. Engineers can practiceand encourage integrity both individually, and throughtheir professional institutions. At an individual level, engineerscan simply refuse to become involved in any corruptaction. If all engineers refused to participate, directly orindirectly, in a corrupt act and refused to turn a blind eyeto corruption, the level of corruption in the infrastructuresector would immediately and significantly fall. Most corruptionon an infrastructure project could not take placewithout the involvement or knowledge of an engineer.However, it is often difficult for engineers to work alone,particularly when faced with corrupt government officialsand, therefore, action is most powerful if taken by professionalinstitutions on behalf of all their individual members.Professional institutions should:■Publicly speak out against corruption.■ Increase awareness among the institutions’ membersof corruption and its consequences through publicityand training.■Work in conjunction with other domestic andinternational business associations and professionalinstitutions, in both the developed and developing■world, so as to develop a coordinated approach to anticorruptionissues.Work in conjunction with government bodies toensure that national and international efforts to curbcorruption are well-founded, consistent and effective.■ Maintain and enforce an effective code of conduct,which commits the institutions’ members to ananti-corruption policy. The code should provide adisciplinary mechanism under which members whobreach the code are sanctioned.Many professional institutions are already taking the abovesteps.194