Addressing Corruption in Our Engineering/Construction Industry

When I decided to seek the nomination for president-elect of ASCE in 2002, I knew I had to champion a program that would benefit all our members. I found lots of ideas, some too small to be of widespread good and others too narrow to help the variety of activities in which civil engineers participate. Still others were impractical. For example, I didn’t think we had the political clout to be successful in lobbying for a secretary of infrastructure in the U.S. president’s cabinet. (This idea might get a better reception today.)

While searching for the right program, I read a brief flyer put out by the Civil Engineering Research Foundation entitled, “The Future of the Design and Construction Industry—Where Will You be in $10\text{Years}$ ?” and found two forecasts that caught my eye:A little reflection on these forecasts led me to two conclusions:What did this mean for the civil engineers in the United States?

If the U.S. engineering community was to be a leading participant in the upcoming global work, something would have to be done to “level the playing field.” Although bribery and corruption occur in every country in the world, they are more common in many of the developing countries. For U.S. engineers to be able to fully participate in global infrastructure development, corruption had to be addressed and eliminated from the engineering/construction industry. I had found a program that would benefit ASCE members: address corruption in the engineering/construction industry. It was consistent with our requirement to hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public because corruption kills people, leads to unsustainable projects, and adversely impacts the poorest and neediest members of society.

In looking at what others were doing to address corruption, I discovered a multitude of strong programs already underway. The major constructors, through the World Economic Forum, had begun their Partnership against Corruption Initiative. The consulting engineering firms, through their global association, International Federation of Consulting Engineers, had developed a Business Integrity Management Program for their member firms. The World Bank had established an institutional integrity activity, headed by an ex-policeman from Europe, to uncover and prosecute bribery, kickbacks, and other corrupt activities on projects they funded. Transparency International had begun rating the openness of the decision-making processes in countries, believing that the more open the process, the lower the likelihood that corruption could take place.

All these worthwhile activities were for companies, agencies, and organizations. ASCE is a society of individual members. ASCE and the engineering societies around the world that are populated by individuals were not actively addressing corruption. Therefore, I established a program for engineering societies, and their individual members, to join in the battle against corruption in our industry.

Corruption occurs when two individuals make one bad decision. The role that ASCE and other engineering societies could fill is to strengthen the ethical decision-making abilities of members. That’s what we set out to do.

The first step, in 2004, was to convene a global task force of ASCE members—the Task Committee on Global Principals for Professional Conduct (GPPC)—chaired by Bob Crist. Bob was well aware of the issues from his work solving project problems around the world. Mike Sanio was the ASCE staff contact. The article on GPPC tells what they have done.

The anticorruption theme is catching on all over the world. A member of GPPC from Spain, Jose Medim, as president of the World Federation of Engineering Organizations, began the Anticorruption Task Group in that global organization in October 2005. In 2005, I visited Brazil and spoke with Brazilian engineering societies and the Union of Pan-American Engineering Societies (UPADI) on this topic. In 2006, UPADI made some strong policy statements addressing corruption, and the new UPADI president will be starting an anticorruption task group in 2009. The Asian Civil Engineering Coordinating Council, of which ASCE is a member, has just formed a new anticorruption committee.

A highlight of our activities was recognition by the America Bar Association (ABA) in their important World Justice Project (WJP). The WJP aims at strengthening the rule of law in all countries around the world—an activity that is vital in the battle against corruption. At their first global meeting in July 2008, four engineers, including ASCE President Dave Mongan and I, were on a panel sharing our actions in addressing corruption. In an interview after the meeting, ABA President Bill Neukom was asked why he had involved disciplines outside the legal profession. In his answer, he noted that the engineering profession was actively pursuing the elimination of corruption in their industry and that the WJP would benefit from their activities and knowledge.

As you read about anticorruption activities around the world in this issue, you will become more aware of the magnitude of corruption in the engineering/construction industry and the importance of addressing it. Civil engineers have the obligation to hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public. Join us in this important global effort.