What a mess. I wonder if the contractor was even qualified to do the work (around Detroit MI where I am you dont usually see an electric company installing a sewer line).
Usually the engineers make the contractor demonstrate knowledge of the work if not previous projects they did.

In two different instances in small towns, citizens actually filed lawsuits over these abuses. In one place a citizens group filed a suit which resulted in the town manager and the police chief quitting. The suit is still in the courts and the citizens won't back down claiming that the selectment are ulitimately responsible for the overpayments.
In the other case the person filing happened to be an attorney who was just fed up. Anyway, that is the way to get things cleared up. The courts will decide whether any law was broken.
On a huge cost overrun of a hospital addition in my area, 3 hospital executives went to jail for misstating and juggling the facts even though none of them profited from the costs overruns.