FIDIC’s final online event of its 2024 programme is a webinar, organised by the FIDIC integrity management committee, will highlight and demonstrate the importance of undertaking anti-corruption activities at all levels of the construction and infrastructure industry. The webinar, Tackling corruption and rooting it out of the industry - An essential webinar for International Anti-Corruption Day, takes place on Monday 9 December 2024 at 12 noon CET and is the third in a series of three events that FIDIC has held on this crucial issue.
FIDIC and professional services partnership EY have teamed up once again to organise the event to coincide with the UN International Anti-Corruption Day to give updates on the collaborative work being undertaken by FIDIC and EY on this important issue for all those working in the construction sector. The webinar will offer attendees a range of helpful tips, approaches and strategies that companies and organisations can apply to combat the scourge of corruption.
Speakers at the webinar will highlight the importance of anti-corruption activities at all levels, from the individual to the nation state and, crucially, how construction professionals can play their part in advocating for integrity. Of course, integrity is one of FIDIC’s core values and for many years the organisation has highlighted the need for organisations to put integrity at the heart of their operations. It has been shown that organisations that do this are more resilient, more profitable and better able to retain their top talent and attract new customers, especially during challenging times.
Commenting on the upcoming event, Richard Stump, vice president of leading US architecture, engineering and consulting firm RS&H and chair of FIDIC’s integrity management committee, said: “This webinar is timely and critical and important. I’m not only excited about what we will be discussion, I think it is badly needed too. We need to get the word out there on this extremely critical issue.”
As well as discussing the current state of integrity globally and attitudes and views on corruption at different levels of businesses, the webinar will also examine the all-important issues of whistleblowing and ‘speak-up’ culture and look at how this can be developed across companies, organisations and governments.
The online event will be chaired by Richard Stump, vice president of leading US architecture, engineering and consulting firm RS&H and chair of FIDIC’s integrity management committee. The top line up of knowledgeable speakers includes Nigel Iyer, co-founder and director of anti-fraud consultancy B4 Investigate AB (Sweden), Bruce Wymond, founding director of the Global Infrastructure Anti-Corruption Centre (Australia), Jacqueline Gerrick, president and CEO of Whistleblowers of America (USA) and Cecilia Melzi, a partner at EY (Peru).
Attendees at the webinar will be able to benefit from some key insights from the panel of speakers. Nigel Iyer has significant experience in the field having been a fraud investigator for 30 years. “Fraud and corruption is everywhere in the world but very prevalent in the infrastructure industry,” Iyer said, speaking to FIDIC this week. “It’s real people who are on the front line who spot things – I believe everyone can be a fraud detective, something that’s a key part of International Anti-Corruption Day,” he said.
Founding director of the Global Infrastructure Anti-Corruption Centre, Bruce Wymond, is a professional engineer with over 40 years of construction experience, including 25 years as a director of a consulting engineering group across Asia and Australia. He has worked in over 20 countries and been involved in some of the largest building projects in the world. “I was a whistleblower around 15 years ago and corruption has been a constant in the construction industry across my whole career,” Wymond said. He is also the author of the book, Corruption in the Construction Industry, a groundbreaking work which features case studies from around the world and illustrates the mechanisms exploited by various corrupt participants at each stage of a project.
Jacqueline Gerrick founded Whistleblowers of America (WoA) as a nonprofit in 2017, which provides voluntary peer support to those suffering the impacts of workplace traumatic stress. She developed the Whistleblower Retaliation Checklist© to identify negative psychosocial impacts on victimised employees and provides forensic testimony. With well over 1,000 contacts across 30 countries, WoA has access to a wide network and Gerrick’s experiences should be well worth listening to.
EY partner Cecilia Melzi has 20 years of experience in forensic services, compliance programmes and fraud investigations. She also has significant whistleblower experience. “We handled the whistleblower hotlines for more than 200 companies in Peru, in the region and in the world, so we have some valuable information about how companies, how can I say, ‘manage’ their whistleblowers,” said Melzi. Her reflections at the webinar on how companies and organisations are going about creating an environment for employees to speak up and speak out on corruption should be absolutely fascinating.
Urging people to sign up for the free webinar, Richard Stump, chair of FIDIC’s integrity management committee, said: “I’d like to be able to not only have a robust discussion and a really passionate discussion about the importance of integrity and how we fight corruption going into 2025, but I also want to talk about how people can do things to protect themselves, to protect their friends and colleagues and also their companies.”
