Absolutely this. And not corruption (neccessarily) in the form of "you give me $100k into my bank account and I'll approve the deal" type of corruption.
Just simply incompetent (at best) people milking the projects for insane amounts of money while adding no value. Actually in many cases adding negative value.
Basically low-level corruption like scheduling an extra couple construction laborers to a project that only needs half of what you assigned.
It's the same problem with the means-tested entitlement programs in the US. Sure outright fraud (e.g. welfare queen) is not worth talking about it's so rare. But the day to day low-level fraud that is endemic and pervasive to the system? Never counted in any studies.
The general incompetence and fraud has slowly (the older I get) become the norm. It's rare you come across competently done projects these days that are not swamped by fraud and waste.
I guess my point is that it's so common it's simply become normalized these days, and people no longer even see it as fraud/corruption/sloth - it's simply the way things are. It's not just construction - it's practically everything. I guess it's pretty similar to cost disease.
Ironically, the pinnacle of corruption was the way Congress swapped district-specific funding ("earmarks") in lieu of outright cash/votes swaps on non-transportation legislation. The "bridge to nowhere" system got burned in 2005 and long-term surface transportation funding has been a wreck ever since. Congress hasn't done much worthwhile since, either.
Otherwise, a lot of the "corruption" is just federal contracting hoops and hurdles--again, in place, theoretically, to limit corruption. More irony: Republicans are, essentially, arguing that old-fashioned cronyism is more efficient and cost-effective. Last laugh: It might be.
Every company working on a project deserves to make profit, right? and they deserve to make more profit than ever before, right? So they made $100 million in profit 10 years ago, $1 billion last year, you know for sure they are going to make > $1 billion this year, otherwise they are an outright failure.
Death by a thousand cuts. Because we are talking infrastructure, most of the corruption is happening at the city and county level where the permitting process happens. Nothing really ever so big enough as to garner national news (and maybe this is why it has gone unchecked for so long); lots and lots of misuse of local taxpayer monies, misappropriations, etc.
I was reading recently about corruption in Jared Kushner's businesses; these detail some of the ways and means it happens: City approves large fancy tower complex, but construction company hires expensive out-of-state workers, fails to pay taxes that benefit local schools, etc.
Yeah, was looking for a comment like this. While not an outright parallel, some of the similarities strike me as eerily similar to a recent article in the new yorker that discusses the russia-crimea bridge: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/05/29/putins-shadow-c...
