Resource Alert: GIACC publishes complete university anti-corruption course
While it is increasingly accepted that organizations should provide anti-corruption training to their personnel, it is rare for universities to offer equivalent training to their students. But the Global Infrastructure Anti-Corruption Centre (GIACC) has designed and written a university anti-corruption course to help their students know what corruption is and how to avoid it.
GIACC — a UK-based non-profit that operates internationally — provides the course materials free of charge to universities as a public service in an attempt to raise awareness of corruption and to help in the prevention and detection of corruption worldwide.
The course is intended to form part of an undergraduate or postgraduate degree or professional qualification for students studying subjects relevant to the infrastructure sector (e.g., engineering, architecture, project management). It may also be helpful to students in other business sectors and professional fields, such as law, accounting, and business management.
The analysis and examples given in the course focus on the infrastructure sector but are also applicable to, and can be adapted for, other sectors.
Course content
The course is divided into the following eight sections:
Section 1: Introduction to the course: The course’s purpose and content.
Section 2: What is corruption: 1) What is meant by the term “corruption” 2) How the law treats corrupt acts as civil wrongs and criminal offenses 3) the main types of corruption offenses, and 4) the corruption offenses students are likely to encounter when working on infrastructure projects. The corruption offenses examined are bribery, extortion, fraud, cartels, abuse of function, and embezzlement.
Section 3: How corruption occurs on infrastructure projects: 1) How the infrastructure project process works (project participants, project phases, and typical contractual structures) 2) how corruption occurs in each project phase, and 3) how corruption is concealed on infrastructure projects (such as using intermediaries to pay bribes, or concealed ownership structures).
Section 4: Why corruption occurs on infrastructure projects: The different motivators which may lead someone to become involved in corruption (such as the desire for illicit gain, or to level the playing field) and the factors which facilitate corruption on infrastructure projects (such as the involvement of public officials, differences between projects, the complexity of construction works, and inadequate anti-corruption controls).
Section 5: The cost of corruption: The cost categories include defective or dangerous infrastructure, over-priced infrastructure, lower investment, poor public services, and the undermining of the proper functioning of society.
Section 6: Dealing with corruption: 1) The four value systems that impact how an individual deals with corruption: personal ethics, professional ethics, employer ethics, and criminal law 2) the steps that professional institutions and employers should take to prevent corruption 3) what those working in the infrastructure sector should do to avoid corruption or if they are faced with a corrupt situation.
Section 7: Case study: The Galaxy Highway: A hypothetical case study that enables students to examine a series of dilemmas that arise in the various phases of the fictitious Galaxy Highway project. It helps students apply what they have learned in the course to the hypothetical facts of the case study. Each case study section contains a narrative of facts and questions for consideration and discussion.
Section 8: Corruption Cases: Detailed Case Studies: Eight detailed case studies of real-life corruption cases are referred to in sections 1 to 6. These cases help students understand the reality of corruption’s significant and widespread nature.
The course content has been designed to be delivered in one term or semester and requires around three hours per week of study and seminar time. A university may adapt the course to fit its requirements.
More information on the course can be found at https://giaccentre.org/university-course/
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Catherine Stansbury and Neill Stansbury are the co-founders and directors of GIACC and the authors of the course. They are both construction lawyers with over 35 years of experience in the international infrastructure sector.