Construction Sector Transparency Initiative: making construction more accountable

Abstract

The international Construction Sector Transparency Initiative brings government, the private sector and civil society together with the aim of promoting transparency and accountability in the global construction sector. The UK was one of seven pilot countries along with Ethiopia, Malawi, the Philippines, Tanzania, Vietnam and Zambia, later joined by Guatemala. This paper explains why the initiative is of importance to not only the public, who fund the procurement of public sector construction projects through rates and taxes, but also to construction professionals and the organisations they work for worldwide. It explains the concepts of the multi-stakeholder approach and disclosure, and highlights the findings and lessons from the pilots.

Contemporary Review of Anti-Corruption Measures in Construction Project Management

“…Therefore, in order to increase administrative or managerial efficiency, it is expedient to develop and implement strategic managerial measures to effectively mitigate or expunge the practices and effects of corruption. Under this construct, transparency mechanism was identified as the leading variable (de Jong, Henry, & Stansbury, 2009; Hawkins & McKittrick, 2012; Ling, Ong, Ke, Wang, & Zou, 2014). A total of 21 out of 38 publications identified transparency mechanism as a significant approach to combat corrupt practices exposed to administrative units involved in CPM (Bowen et al, 2012; Le et al, 2014a; Shen & Song, 1998; Sohail & Cavill, 2008; Zhang et al, 2016).…”

How to Note: Reducing corruption in infrastructure sectors

“…This can partly be explained by a poor understanding and enforcement of the law. CoST found that procuring entities in all pilot countries, including the UK, rarely met the legal requirements for disclosing project information (Hawkins and McKittrick, 2012). Donors can play a key role in mitigating these risks by working with government partners:…”

“…Evidence from the pilot suggests that the multi-stakeholder approach where representatives from government, industry and civil society provide leadership of the CoST national programme is an important element in using the findings of the assurance process to hold procuring entities to account (Calland and Hawkins, 2012).…”

Barriers Affecting Effective Application of Anticorruption Measures in Infrastructure Projects: Disparities between Developed and Developing Countries

“…From the perspectives of industrial and academic researchers, some of the anti-corruption measures developed to check corruption in project management include: increase in accountability, comprehensive rules and regulations, effective investigation and court proceedings, departmental disciplinary action and rigorous supervision among many others (Zou 2006;Suen et al 2007;Tanzi 1998;Shan et al 2015a,b;Hawkins and McKittrick 2012). Moreover, the contributions from top global (Boyd and Padilla 2009), FIDIC's Business Integrity Management System for consulting firms among many others (Krishnan 2009;Boyd and Padilla 2009).…”