It was pleasing to learn that Consulting Engineers South Africa (Cesa) is establishing an initial R1-million anticorruption ‘war chest’, which it plans to dip into to take legal action against municipalities and private companies that it suspects of having acted illegally in the award or securing of contracts.

Cesa president Naren Bhojaram reported last week that the decision was taken as part of a broader business-integrity thrust designed to “break the silence” on corrupt practices and place the construction and engineering sectors on a new ethical footing.

In his presidential address, delivered in Johannesburg, Bhojaram warned that the world’s perception of South Africa’s respect for business integrity was “deteriorating at an alarming rate” and that this had the potential to drive away investment.

Cesa was particularly disturbed by the current tender-adjudica- tion trend at local government level, whereby bid adjudication committees were no longer calling for reports from professional engineers when deciding on the award of contracts. “This smells of corruption,” Bhojaram asserted, as it made it possible for officials to disregard sound technical input and potentially manipulate the adjudication process in favour of certain bidders.

Cesa members, who were required to sign up to a well-monitored and well-enforced business integrity management system, were losing out to less scrupulous operators.

Deputy president Abe Thela revealed that Cesa’s 490 member firms had, therefore, agreed to ringfence 10% of their yearly fee contributions to establish a fund that would enable Cesa to take legal action when it became apparent that rules and procedures had been breached.

The intention would be to “interdict” projects and to use legal processes to either pursue the conviction of officials and business-people, or seek answers when well-defined government tender rules were disregarded. “It is going to be an expensive exercise, but we are prepared to take it on,” Bhojaram averred.

Through such processes, municipalities and companies would be “named and shamed”, even at the expense of future business flow to Cesa-linked companies.

The organisation, whose members employed about 21 000 skilled people, would also consider taking their complaints to the Public Protector, where further investigation could be deemed necessary. CEO Graham Pirie said that it was currently interrogating one case to assess whether or not to hand it over to the Public Protector for further action.

The organisation was also planning to form alliances with other groupings, such as the Congress of South African Trade Unions’ Corruption Watch, in a bid to deal with corruption “head-on”.

Cesa had also drafted an integrity pact, which its members were willing to sign whenever they undertake projects. “We are suggesting this integrity pact be included as part of National Treasury regulations for procuring construction services,” Bhojaram outlined.

Hopefully, these initiatives herald the start of a far more concerted fight-back against corruption in the South African construction sector. But for this fight to succeed, it is going to require a concerted push not only from the likes of Cesa but also from govern- ment departments, business and civil society groupings.