Govt officials at high risk of corruption
Govt officials at high risk of corruptionBy Fridah Zinyama
Tue 02 Mar. 2010, 04:00 CAT
GOVERNMENT officials are considered to be a particular risk with regards to corruption because they have the ability to award valuable contracts or grant favours and yet are often paid relatively little, a report has revealed. And National Council for Construction (NCC) said about 10 to 40 per cent of the US$4 trillion spent in the construction industry worldwide goes to corrupt practices.
In a report titled Corruption Prevention in the Engineering and Contraction Industry,” PriceWaterHouse Coopers Global stated that the definition of government officials was also broader than at first apparent including ministers and civil servants, government employees including doctors, law enforcement and military; employees of any enterprise majority owned or controlled by the state and tax authorities and local government.
The report revealed that engineering and construction companies had a business model that exposed them to a greater proportion of the recognised corruption risks than almost any other industry sector.
“This is because they are involved in significant one-off long-term contracts, often for the public sector, using complex supply chains. If they operate abroad, the risk is even greater,” the report read in part.
The report indicated that exposure to corruption was unavoidable but could be managed by individual companies.
“The public works contracts and construction sector emerges as being the most likely! This means that engineering and construction companies face a disproportionately higher risk of being involved in corruption, and management need to ensure that this risk is both recognised and addressed,” the report stated.
NCC executive director Dr Sylvester Mashamba said corruption was very rampant in the construction sector worldwide but Zambia had also not been spared.
“Corruption is perceived to be rife in the Zambian construction industry because there is no information available about the projects being undertaken, especially if it is on behalf of the state,” he said.
Dr Mashamba said corrupt activities could be greatly reduced in the construction industry if more information was availed on different projects being undertaken in the country.
“Every year Zambia losses billions of kwacha on projects which contractors have either not followed specification on or have just not been completed but are certified complete,” he said. “Such are the incidences that we want reduced so that money once spent is used on projects which will benefit the entire community.”
Dr Mashamba said money had been released for different projects like schools, clinics, roads and bridges but because of corrupt activities some of these projects had been substandard or not completed but funds had been fully paid.
He explained that this was the reason why different stakeholders like the British government through the Department for International Development (DFID), supported by the World Bank and the government had come up with a pilot project called the construction sector transparency initiative (CoST).
Dr Mashamba explained that CoST aims at enhancing transparency and accountability of public financed construction projects in order to improve the management of public finances and, thereby tackling the problem of corruption in the construction sector.
He said the formation of CoST was, therefore, meant to tackle corruption through enhancing the accountability of procuring entities, consultants and contractors for the cost and quality of public sector construction projects, by improving transparency to a broad range of stakeholders through disclosure of material project information.
“Zambia is one of the seven countries selected to pilot this exercise; the others include the United Kingdom, Vietnam, Philippines, Malawi, Ethiopia and Tanzania,” he said.
And one of the multi stakeholders group representing the Zambia Institute of Architects Watson Ng’andu said the construction industry dealt with huge contracts and a lot of money, which leaves room for corrupt activities.
“As architects, we work closely with contractors who are chosen to work on particular government projects and sometimes stories are heard where a contractor abandons a project after being paid,” he said. “In normal circumstances, the architects are supposed to have more information about the contractors.”
Ng’andu said it was unfortunate that sometimes contractors would even double the cost of the entire project and when the monies are not paid they abandon the projects.
“The communities are the ones that suffer hence we would like to see an end to such vices in the industry,” said Ng’andu. “Our contribution to the CoST initiative is aimed to increase transparency in the sector and avail information to the public about different projects so that the public can question the contractors when things are not going according to plan.”
Labels: CORRUPTION, NCC, PWC
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