A STURDY OF THE EFFECT OF CORRUPTION ON NIGERIAN CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY
Dosumu, Babatunde Adewale;1 Daramola, Olufemi1;
Taiwo, Yetunde2; Adeyemi-Doro, Oyetunji B.A2
Department of Quantity Surveying, The Polytechnic, Ibadan1,
Department of Architecture, The Polytechnic, Ibadan2
Email:adeyemidoro@yahoo.com or oyetunjiadeyemidoro@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
Substantial amount of failures recorded in the Construction industry in Nigeria were as a result of the corruption within the professionals and stakeholders of the construction industry. This warranted an attempt to evaluate the effects of corruption on construction industry in the south western part of Nigeria consisting of the following states: Oyo, Ogun and Lagos. Though corruption seems to be part of Nigerians daily activities especially in public offices and professionals both in the construction industry and other sectors of national development. This study appraises the previous studies relating to construction industry and cases of corruption and determines the causes of corruption in the construction industry of Nigeria to be poverty, excessive love for money (greed), Politics in the award of contract (godfatherism), professional indiscipline, profit maximization by Contractors, quackery, fall-out of endemic societal corruption and favouritism. Most of Nigerian leaders that were supported to champion national development are corrupt as shown in The Fifty well completed questionnaire retrieved from the respondents, and formed the data that were analyzed by the Relative Importance Index (R.I.I). In addition, the paper outlines the major ways through which corruption mostly takes place in the construction industry. These are bribe by a bidder to obtain planning permit or license, bribe to rig the outcome of a tender, bribe to acquire land, bribe to compromise quality of the project, bribe to delay the project for personal gains etc. Consequently, the paper suggests that to reduce the incidence of corruption in the Nigeria construction industry, the causes as outlined above have to be dealt with decisively by government, contractor, individuals connected with contract awards and by construction professionals, and professional bodies (APBN) like QSRBN, CORBON, ARCON, COREN etc., by sanitizing their members on the need to avoid corruption during professional practices and encourage laws to be enforced on erring members.