FIDIC’s final online event of its 2024 programme was a webinar, organised by the FIDIC integrity management committee, highlighting the importance of undertaking anti-corruption activities at all levels of the construction and infrastructure industry. The webinar, Tackling corruption and rooting it out of the industry - An essential webinar for International Anti-Corruption Day, was the third in a series of three events that FIDIC has held on this crucial issue.
FIDIC and professional services partnership EY teamed up to organise the event to coincide with the UN International Anti-Corruption Day. Speakers at the webinar raised the importance of anti-corruption activities at all levels, from the individual to the nation state and, crucially, how construction professionals can play their part in advocating for integrity.
Opening the webinar, Richard Stump, vice president of leading US architecture, engineering and consulting firm RS&H and chair of FIDIC’s integrity management committee, said: “Integrity has long been one of FIDIC’s core values and for many years we have highlighted the need for companies and organisations to put integrity at the heart of their operations. It is worth noting that organisations that do this are more resilient, more profitable and better able to retain their top talent and attract new customers, especially during challenging times.”
Stump also said that the industry could not afford to be complacent. Corruption in the construction industry is a widespread issue that affects both developed and developing countries, he said and the sector is particularly vulnerable due to the large sums of money involved, the complexity of projects and also the diverse range of, often complex, stakeholders involved.
The line up of knowledgeable speakers included Nigel Iyer, co-founder and director of anti-fraud consultancy B4 Investigate AB (Sweden), Bruce Wymond, founding director of the Global Infrastructure Anti-Corruption Centre (Australia), Jacqueline Garrick, president and CEO of Whistleblowers of America (USA) and Cecilia Melzi, a partner at EY (Peru).
Nigel Iyer, co-founder and director of anti-fraud consultancy B4 Investigate AB, said that he was going to show attendees “how to defend their organisations from the commercial ‘dark arts’”. Explaining a ‘wheel of misfortune’ that detailed the types of corruption, Iyer highlighted the different kinds of corrupt practices that were currently being practised which he said amounted to a large amount of money and reputation being lost every year. “All of us can be fraud detectives,” Iyer said, if people knew what to be on the lookout for. He highlighted a number of examples of ‘red flags’ that should set alarm bells ringing when dealing with invoices that should be relatively easy to spot, if people were fraud aware. “Everyone on the front line in a company has a role to play in the fight against fraud and corruption,” Iyer said. Corruption and fraud destroys lives, Iyer said, and people should demand to be heard to defend their organisations.
The next speaker dealt with the key issue of whistleblowing. Jacqueline Garrick, president and CEO of Whistleblowers of America, outlined some of her experiences as a whistleblower that had led her to set up her non-profit organisation which provides support and advice to people around the US. Garrick highlighted the importance of young people being more corruption aware as they were the industry leaders of the future. “We ask people to ‘be like a giraffe’, by standing tall and sticking your neck out!” Her book, Be a Giraffe, is now a teaching tool for business ethics or to provide perspective for psychosocially safe workspaces.
Garrick has suffered for her whistleblowing, effectively being locked out of the labour market due to speaking out against corrupt practices. She said that this was not an uncommon experience as many people had been similarly victimised for standing up and taking a stand. This highlighted the need for support mechanisms, like those provided by Whistleblowers of America (WoA), she said. WoA also offers the annual Workplace Promise Institute conference for Whistleblower Protection Advocate certification and details of the latest conference can be found at https://www.workplacepromiseinstitute.org/ Garrick also highlighted the importance of 'organisational psychology' that engendered a clear idea of what was good and bad business, so future leaders were inculcated in integrity and felt supported.
Cecilia Melzi, a partner at EY, described her definition of integrity, which she said was to comply with regulatory and stakeholder commitments in a way that gave people confidence in their dealings with the organisation. Strong compliance programmes must start with a commitment to integrity, she said, by having a direct reporting line from a compliance officer to the company board. A clear whistleblowing policy was also needed, said Melzi, which should preserve anonymity. She also highlighted the differences in perception between board members and managers and rank and file employees about how easy it was to report corruption. “This highlights the need for companies to engender a culture and environment where staff feel safe in reporting concerns and setting up a formal procedure to underpin this. It cannot be a tick-box exercise; the process needs to be robust and measurable.” Melzi said.
Founding director of the Global Infrastructure Anti-Corruption Centre, Bruce Wymond, drew out the link between poor infant mortality, life expectancy and extreme poverty and hotspots for corruption. “These hotspots for corruption and extreme poverty in Africa and South Asia are not improving. Corruption everywhere has national and international implications for all countries,” said Wymond. He also made the stark point that the construction sector is the world’s most corrupt industry sector. According to the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors, the annual cost of global corruption was a massive US$5 trillion, he said. This wasn’t just a monetary issue as the death toll attributed to corruption was around 100,000 people per year, comparable with all wars, he said.
Wymond said that there needed to be a united ‘all working together’ approach to battle corruption. This should include raising awareness and the need to recognise the social imperative of tackling corruption, better ways of collaborating and sharing information to maximise the benefits of anti-corruption education, raising the standards of integrity, recognising and addressing the challenges created from a lack of transparency in all aspects of construction and considering the importance of the role of whistleblowers, and how they are better protected. "Don’t stand for corruption in the work-place – instead make the ‘Tough Choices’ needed to maintain integrity. And remember, you can't fix what you can't see,” said Wymond.
Attendees posted many questions in that chat during the webinar. These covered a range of issues including convincing those responsible for universities to make anti-corruption a mandatory subject, whistleblowing protections, the important role of leadership in promoting integrity, raising awareness of anti-corruption actions across the industry, the role of the multilateral development banks in combatting corruption, the role of technology and much more besides. It was clear from the questions asked and points made that there is a thirst for more information on this issue and, crucially, for assistance and guidance on how to combat the scourge of corruption and fraud in the construction sector.
Summing up the webinar, Richard Stump, chair of FIDIC’s integrity management committee, said that the importance of the human element and industry support networks were critical in the fight against corruption. "If we work together as a community, we can combat corruption and build a better place for the future – and that will be a future where young people will lead the way,” he said.
FIDIC Academy runs an on-demand course on the Fundamentals of Integrity Management for the Global Infrastructure Industry. Click here for more information on the course and to reserve a place.
Watch the full webinar recording on the link below.
