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Ethics as Infrastructure: The Economic Case for Integrity in Zambia’s Engineering Sector

The Zambian Economist — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 15:57:33 +0000

By Eng. Willings Sichalwe

Zambia is in the middle of one of its largest infrastructure pushes in a generation, with roads, border facilities, water schemes and energy projects rolling out to support economic diversification and regional trade. Eng. Willings Sichalwe argues that in an environment of tight financing and rising scrutiny from citizens and development partners, ethics has stopped being a soft professional virtue. It has become the discipline that decides whether public and donor money actually survives contact with a project site.

Why Integrity Is Now a Fiscal Question

Infrastructure backlogs and financing gaps remain significant across Zambia, which means every kwacha and every dollar of concessional financing committed to a road, dam or water scheme has to work harder than it once did. In that setting, ethics is not an abstract ideal sitting alongside engineering. It is the foundation the engineering has to stand on.

Where regulatory enforcement is still maturing, the ethical stance of the consulting engineer often becomes the last line of defence against poor quality, inflated costs and unsafe outcomes. Decisions taken at feasibility, design, procurement and construction stages carry consequences well beyond the project itself. They shape whether institutions retain public confidence and whether communities receive the services they were promised. The core principles of the FIDIC Code of Ethics, namely integrity, competence, impartiality, fairness and zero tolerance for corruption, are therefore best read as operational requirements rather than aspirational language. They shape how projects are conceived, procured, designed and delivered.

Pillar One: Individual Accountability and the Cost of Cutting Corners

Ethical leadership begins with individual accountability, and in the Zambian and wider African context that plays out in very concrete situations: pressure to certify incomplete works to unlock payment, requests to informally adjust a bill of quantities, or an expectation to overlook non-compliance to preserve a relationship. What separates a leader is the ability to hold the technical truth in those moments.

The pressure to absorb budgets before year-end, hit political timelines or keep a project visibly moving can push teams to bypass due process, compress technical reviews or accept weak documentation. It can look like progress in the short term. In practice it tends to show up later as cost overruns, claims and disputes, assets that fail prematurely, and a public that trusts engineering advice less. Integrity requires engineers to flag risk transparently even when a client or sponsor would rather not hear it, to keep evidence ahead of external pressure, and to manage conflicts of interest actively, including parallel commercial relationships that could compromise judgement. Impartiality has to be practised deliberately too, for instance by applying the same technical standard to every contractor regardless of their perceived influence.

Competence sits inside the same ethical obligation. Gaps in hydrology, geotechnical or traffic data, combined with climate variability and fast urbanisation, can produce designs that are unsafe or too costly for a client to maintain. Continuous professional development, regional experience and peer review are what keep advice given in Lusaka, Solwezi or Mongu aligned with international practice while still fitting local conditions.

Pillar Two: Institutionalising Integrity Through BIMS

Individual integrity matters, but it is not enough on its own to hold across multiple projects, offices and staff turnover. Lasting change needs ethics built into systems, so that standards do not depend on which individual happens to be on site.

The FIDIC Business Integrity Management System, or BIMS, offers a practical framework for firms making that shift, translating principles into processes and controls that survive personnel changes. In the Zambian and African context, the core elements include:

Clear and enforced anti-corruption policies covering bribery, facilitation payments and improper inducements across public and private commissions
Transparent, documented procedures for procurement support, tender evaluation and recommendations, particularly where the engineer is advising a public client
Governance safeguards such as defined reporting lines, whistleblowing mechanisms and protection for staff who raise concerns about irregularities
Regular internal reviews and independent audits of project and corporate practice, with corrective actions tracked over time

The economic case for this is direct. Firms with strong integrity systems tend to manage project risk better, face fewer disputes and demonstrate credibility that matters to both local clients and international financiers. In practice, that translates into better cost control, fewer contested payment certificates and smoother disbursement of development-partner funds, all of which affect how far a fixed infrastructure budget actually stretches.

Young professionals are often closest to project data, design platforms and site records, which puts them in a strong position to flag emerging risks, such as unexplained scope changes or repeated quality failures, before they become expensive. Practical tools that keep a BIMS-style policy from sitting unused on a shelf include simple ethical-risk checklists at project kick-off, anonymous digital channels for reporting concerns, and induction sessions for new staff and site teams on what is expected of them.

Pillar Three: Shaping Industry Practice Through Advocacy

Ethical leadership does not stop at the boundary of one firm or one project. Across Africa there is a clear, growing demand from citizens, civil society and regional bodies for infrastructure delivery that is more transparent, inclusive and sustainable, and young professionals within bodies such as the Association of Consulting Engineers of Zambia (ACEZ) have both the platform and the responsibility to help shape that direction. Concretely, this includes:

Promoting procurement frameworks that weigh cost against quality, integrity and lifecycle value, including advocating for quality- and cost-based selection over purely lowest-price approaches
Challenging entrenched practices such as routine variation inflation or under-resourced supervision, which erode standards and can compromise public safety
Engaging regulators, policymakers and professional bodies to strengthen guidelines, registration requirements and enforcement
Mentoring students and junior engineers so that ethics is treated as a core competency, illustrated with real Zambian and regional case studies rather than as a theoretical module

Consulting engineers in Zambia influence far more than technical drawings. Their judgement shapes where roads are aligned, how dams are sized, how border facilities are configured and how climate resilience gets built into a design. Aligning with global benchmarks such as the FIDIC Code of Ethics and BIMS, while engaging honestly with local constraints like limited data, funding delays and capacity gaps, is what allows infrastructure programmes to strengthen public institutions rather than quietly erode them.

Business, Investor and Policy Implications

For contracting and consulting firms, integrity systems are increasingly a commercial differentiator, not just a compliance exercise. Firms that can show a functioning anti-corruption policy, documented procurement procedures and an independent audit trail are better placed to win work tied to development-partner financing, where those controls are often a condition of disbursement.

For investors and financiers, the pattern is one already familiar from Zambia’s wider financing conversation: weak governance at project level raises the effective cost of capital, through delays, disputed certificates and renegotiated scope, even when the headline interest rate on financing looks attractive. Strong integrity systems are a way of lowering that hidden risk premium.

For policymakers, the procurement model itself is a fiscal lever. A tender process weighted toward lowest price alone tends to reward the bidder best able to absorb an aggressive quote today and recover it through variations later. Building quality- and integrity-based criteria into procurement, and resourcing independent supervision properly, is a direct way to protect the value of public infrastructure spending over its full life, not just at contract signature.

A Call to Action: Lead, Influence, Redefine

The future of engineering in Africa will be defined as much by trust as by technical innovation. Public tolerance for waste, corruption and unsafe infrastructure is falling, while the demand for accountable, competent professionals is rising. For the next generation of leaders, that means moving beyond narrow compliance and consciously building integrity into how the work gets done, through three connected commitments:

Lead with integrity, by consistently placing professional principle above short-term convenience or personal gain, even when that is not the easiest path locally
Influence organisations, by strengthening the systems that institutionalise transparency and accountability, drawing on tools such as BIMS and adapting them to local conditions
Redefine success, by measuring achievement not only by the number and size of projects delivered, but by the integrity of the process, the durability of the asset, and the trust built with clients, communities and partners

Conclusion

Engineering has always carried a responsibility to clients, communities and society. In Zambia, where every project represents a significant share of national resources, that responsibility is magnified. Meeting it takes more than technical competence. It takes integrity that holds under pressure.

Ethics is not a constraint on engineering in this context. It is the infrastructure that everything else is built on.

Eng. Willings Sichalwe is a Civil Engineer and Council Member of the Future Leaders under the Association of Consulting Engineers of Zambia (ACEZ), specialising in infrastructure development with experience in roads, hydrology and project delivery systems aligned with international best practice and African development priorities. He writes on ethical leadership, institutional integrity and professional accountability in Zambia’s engineering sector.

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The Economics of Exclusion: How Financing Asymmetry Is Squeezing Zambian Contractors Out of Their Own Market

The Zambian Economist — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 14:05:19 +0000

By Eng. Willings Sichalwe

Image: Eng. Willings Sichalwe

Zambia’s skyline has changed dramatically over the past decade, but the firms building it have changed too. A growing share of major public infrastructure now goes to Chinese state backed contractors, and the reasons are less about competition on merit than about who can access the cheapest money.

A Market Shaped by Financing, Not Just Competition

Zambia’s construction sector has delivered real, visible output over the past ten years, from dual carriageways to civic complexes. But the mix of firms winning that work has shifted sharply toward Chinese state linked contractors, and the shift is not simply the result of a level playing field producing a natural winner. It reflects a structural gap in how firms are financed.

Many Chinese contractors operating in Zambia draw on policy banks and development finance institutions in their home country, which gives them access to capital that is both cheaper and longer term than what is available in Zambia’s domestic banking market. Zambian contractors, by contrast, borrow from commercial banks at rates that make performance bonds, advance payment guarantees and working capital expensive relative to project margins. That gap shows up directly in tender prices, long before a shovel touches the ground.

The Bidding Table Tilts Before the Bidding Starts

Years of continuous regional project work have also left many Chinese contractors with large fleets of heavy equipment that are already paid off. Running a depreciated grader or batching plant costs far less than leasing or financing a new one, so these firms can price bids close to their direct material and running costs and still stay in business on volume alone. A Zambian Grade 1 or Grade 2 contractor, financing every piece of equipment commercially, is often unable to match that price on paper even where the technical capability is equal or better. In a procurement system that leans heavily on lowest evaluated price, that arithmetic pushes local firms to the margins of projects funded by their own taxes.

Where the Money Goes After It Is Spent

The financing gap is only part of the story. What happens to public money after a contract is signed matters just as much for the domestic economy. In a construction sector that recirculates spending locally, through bank deposits, local professional fees and domestically sourced materials, public infrastructure spending carries a multiplier effect that supports jobs and businesses well beyond the project itself.

Under the current model, a significant share of materials, specialised equipment and senior technical services is instead sourced through supply chains anchored outside Zambia. That reduces how much of each kwacha spent on a public project actually stays in the domestic economy, and it limits the broader growth effect that large infrastructure budgets are supposed to generate.

Wages and Subcontracting: Where the Squeeze Is Felt Directly

The effects reach beyond firm balance sheets and into individual careers. Engineers, surveyors and artisans on Chinese contractor projects frequently report pay that sits below what comparable roles offer elsewhere, including in parts of the public sector. That wage compression discourages skilled graduates from staying in construction and contributes to a slow drain of experience from the sector.

Subcontracting, which is meant to build local capacity over time, often ends up as a compliance exercise rather than a genuine partnership. Zambian subcontractors are frequently squeezed between slow public payment cycles and thin margins set by main contractors who have already priced tightly to win the tender. The financial and operational risk in the value chain lands disproportionately on the smallest, least capitalised firms.

A Different Model Existed Before

It is worth remembering that Zambia’s experience with foreign contractors has not always looked this way. European, South African and other international firms that built major infrastructure in earlier decades were foreign too, and imperfect in their own right, but many ran operating models that pulled Zambian professionals into senior roles. Country directors, project managers and board members who were Zambian were not unusual, and these firms leaned on domestic legal, logistics and engineering consultancy services in a way that supported a wider local ecosystem.

That contrast matters because it shows the current pattern is not an inevitable feature of foreign investment in construction. It is a feature of a specific financing and procurement model.

Dimension	Legacy international partnerships	Current state backed model
Senior roles for Zambians	Common: country director, PM, board seats	Limited; often nominal titles with restricted authority
Local sourcing	Extensive use of domestic legal, logistics, consultancy services	Significant share of inputs sourced through home-market supply chains
Financing base	Commercial, comparable terms to local peers	Concessional, policy bank and DFI backed
Wage levels for local professionals	Reflected expertise and responsibility	Frequently reported below comparable roles

Where Governance Adds to the Imbalance

None of this is only about money. Weaknesses in procurement governance widen the gap further. Concerns have been raised over the years about limited competition in the award of some large contracts, non transparent bilateral arrangements, and political interference in project scope and selection. When bodies such as the National Council for Construction and the Engineering Institution of Zambia are bypassed or under resourced, it becomes harder to enforce local participation requirements, skills transfer commitments and fair labour practices. Well capitalised external contractors then operate with more latitude, while local firms and professionals have limited recourse when commitments are not honoured.

Four Policy Levers for Rebalancing the Sector

Fixing the imbalance requires more than sentiment. A few concrete levers stand out:

Reserve smaller contracts for citizen owned firms. Works below a defined threshold could be ring fenced for registered citizen contractors, and larger projects could require mandatory joint ventures with a minimum forty percent local equity stake and real participation in project management, not a silent partnership.
Overhaul subcontracting and nomination rules. Unbundling subcontracted scopes at tender stage, with indicative value ranges and independent oversight of nomination, would reduce the discretion main contractors currently have to set unsustainably thin local margins.
Build targeted financing instruments. Credit lines, performance bond guarantees and equipment leasing pools, developed with domestic banks and development partners, would address the capital constraint that is the root of the bidding disadvantage.
Strengthen regulatory autonomy. Giving the National Council for Construction and the Engineering Institution of Zambia real authority to audit public projects, penalise non compliant firms and control work permit issuance would help ensure foreign staffing is used only where local skills genuinely do not exist.

What This Means for Business, Investors and Policy

For local contractors: the near term challenge is financing cost, not technical capability. Access to concessional credit lines or leasing pools would change the bidding math directly.

For investors and development partners: procurement structures that mandate meaningful local equity and management participation in joint ventures create a more durable domestic construction sector to partner with over time, rather than a shrinking one.

For policymakers: the multiplier effect of infrastructure spending depends on where that spending is sourced. Local content requirements in procurement are a fiscal policy lever, not just an industrial one.

The financing constraint at the heart of this problem is not unique to construction. It mirrors the wider pattern documented in Zambia’s SME credit gap, and it sits alongside efforts such as Statutory Instrument 68’s local-content rules for mining, which apply the same positive-discrimination logic this piece recommends for construction.

Conclusion

Zambia’s need for roads, bridges, power infrastructure and public facilities is real and urgent, and foreign capital and contractors will continue to have a role in meeting it. The concern is not partnership itself but a procurement model that rewards access to sovereign backed capital and integrated supply chains over the development of local capacity. Without a deliberate recalibration, through positive discrimination for citizen firms, fairer subcontracting rules, targeted financing support and stronger regulatory autonomy, Zambia risks building infrastructure it cannot independently replicate, maintain or adapt in the future.

Eng. Willings Sichalwe writes on ethical leadership, institutional integrity, engineers’ welfare and professional dignity in Zambia’s construction sector.

See also: Ethics as Infrastructure: The Economic Case for Integrity in Zambia’s Engineering Sector, Eng. Willings Sichalwe’s analysis of why integrity systems are now a fiscal question for infrastructure delivery.