Updated report highlights that not dealing with corruption is costing companies and the industry more over the past 12 months.
International engineering federation FIDIC has updated its 2022 State of the World report, Corruption, it’s effects and the need to take action and has found growing signs that the cost of not tackling corruption is increasing.
The news should act as a wake-up call for the engineering, construction and infrastructure sector to ensure that it has measures in place to combat corruption. FIDIC released the update to its report to coincide with the UN’s International Anti-Corruption Day which took place on 9 December 2023 and called for an increasing focus and engagement on transparency and accountability in government and business practices.
Commenting on the findings in the updated report that the cost of failing to act on corruption is rising, Graham Pontin, FIDIC’s director of policy, external affairs and communications, said: “While there hasn’t been a great deal of change in the trends around corruption over the past 12 months, what we have discovered is that there are growing signs that the cost of not taking action to address corruption are increasing and this should make our industry sit up and take notice.
“It is difficult to pinpoint exactly why the costs of not dealing with corruption are rising but what is clear is that countries with lower corruption have higher rates of gross domestic product per capita.
“Corruption has a cost and if we consider these findings in the context of the recent FIDIC and EY report on Closing the sustainable infrastructure gap to achieve net zero which highlighted that to achieve global net zero, up to USD 139 trillion of investment is required globally by 2050 even the smallest cost incurred by corruption will result in significant lost investment opportunities.”
