Fighting Corruption in Public Works: The Use of Cost Engineering in Criminal Investigation

Cost engineering aims to obtain reliable cost and schedule estimates. However, many public works demand additional costs that are considerably higher than the initial cost estimates. In Brazil, this can be partially explained by how the government hires public works services. Because of the high frequency of this problem and the associated damage, the aspects that impact overpricing should be better understood, including fraudulent acts. This paper presents a case study to demonstrate how cost engineering can be used to identify frauds in Brazilian public works. The research method was based on a quantitative approach to describe the estimated overbilling through bibliographic and documentary analysis of forensics engineering expert reports. Data from public works contracts were obtained for a 4-year period, which resulted in an average percentage of overbilling. This index enabled identifying fraudulent evidence in Brazilian public works that match a period of highly corrupt practices in the country.