Typology and Frequency of Findings in Public Works Audits: A Comparative Analysis for Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, and Peru

Abstract

Public works management in Latin America faces persistent challenges that affect its efficiency and transparency. This research aimed to determine and compare the most recurrent audit findings in public works projects in Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, and Peru. A mixed-methods research approach was applied, qualitatively and quantitatively analyzing a sample of 704 findings from 79 government audit reports. Findings were categorized using a thematic classification scheme, developed inductively from the data itself until theoretical saturation was reached. The results show that most irregularities are concentrated in Administrative and Contractual Management (49.3%) and the Technical Execution Phase (30.5%). The most frequent individual findings are "Construction Defects" (8.4%) and "Payment for Non-Executed Work" (7.5%). Qualitative analysis identifies supervision and inspection with functional deficiencies as the cross-cutting root cause. Additionally, a Chi-Square test (χ²=30.50, p<0.05) confirmed that risk profiles differ significantly between countries. It is concluded that the critical control point in public works is on-site supervision, the weakness of which allows both technical and administrative failures to materialize.