Skip to main content

Ethics and Financial Integrity in Highway Project Management

Billions of dollars are invested each year in highway construction and maintenance projects across the world. Up to 5% of these funds are estimated to be lost on account of insufficient ethical and financial oversight. Highway Agencies and tendering authorities are particularly at risk. Implementing financial integrity principles stretches public budgets further and is beneficial to the relation with private sector contractors. According to the World Bank, the most common forms of wrongdoing are collusion
June 18, 2012 Read time: 2 mins

Billions of dollars are invested each year in highway construction and maintenance projects across the world. Up to 5% of these funds are estimated to be lost on account of insufficient ethical and financial oversight. Highway Agencies and tendering authorities are particularly at risk. Implementing financial integrity principles stretches public budgets further and is beneficial to the relation with private sector contractors.

According to the 2332 World Bank, the most common forms of wrongdoing are collusion among firms bidding on a project and fraud and corruption in the execution of the resulting contract. Collusion, bribery, kickbacks and overcharging all affect the financial viability of a project. When construction materials are substituted and quality controls bypassed, it is the useful life of the road and the safety of the user which are at stake.
Encouraging ethical project management practices has long been an important topic for the 713 International Road Federation. Taking a further step, 2462 IRF is now offering the first in a series of certified training course dedicated to the issue of fraud & corruption on highway projects
Led by Michael Avery, an international expert in financial integrity on transportation infrastructure projects, the course will describe the extent of fraud and corruption, develop specific risk profiles and detail available internal control instruments. “There is good and bad news”, noted Michael Avery “The bad news is that fraud & corruption exist at all phases of highway development. The good news is that effective tools have now been developed to greatly reduce its impact”. The course will examine practical case studies, apply lessons learned and encourage delegates to develop organisation-level action plans.

Please take a moment to consider the impacts of unethical practices within your industry and sign up for the course by contacting Magid Elabyad at %$Linker: Email 0 0 0 oLinkExternal [email protected] IRF News false mailto:[email protected] true false%>

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Safe Roads Safe Kids Project: delivering a safe journey to school
    October 15, 2018
    Every year 186,300 children die from road traffic crashes around the world. That is more than 500 children every day. Road traffic injury ranks among the top four causes of death for all children over the age of five years. According to data reported by the Moroccan Comité national de prévention des accidents de la circulation (CNPAC), young people below the age of 14 represent 15% of all the deaths on Moroccan roads and the majority of these are pedestrians. Many of these fatalities are amongst children
  • Next IRF World Meeting to be held in New Delhi from 14-17 November 2017
    June 30, 2014
    The General Assembly and the Board of Directors of IRF at their annual Statutory Meeting held in Paris on 16th April 2014 have firmed up the venue and dates of the next IRF World Meeting. This major event will be held in New Delhi, the capital of India from 14-17 November 2017 Held every four years for the last 60 years, the World Meeting is a highly regarded and must-attend event.
  • Improving conspicuity and safety for India’s cyclists
    March 13, 2014
    IRF’s India Chapter launches major drive to promote the conspicuity of cyclists Road accident deaths in India are among the highest in the world. Cyclists constitute a particularly vulnerable category of road users with more than 6,800 estimated to have lost their lives on the country’s roads in 2011 alone. A large proportion of the fatalities can be attributed to nothing more than the fact that cyclists are not always sufficiently conspicuous to other road users. To address this tragic state of aff
  • IRF’s global road awards open
    June 13, 2013
    The International Road Federation is inviting entries for its Global Road Achievement Awards (GRAA) programme. According to the IRF, this competition is intended to highlight innovative road projects and individuals that raise the profile of roads in worldwide social and economic development. The awards provide an important route for promoting road industry innovation and achievements receive worldwide publicity. Winners will receive a crystal trophy at the 17th IRF World Meeting & Exhibition in Riyadh late