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Education | Strategic Considerations
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In 1959, when Singapore attained self-government, we inherited from the British an efficient public service but corruption was rife and permeated throughout all sectors of society. When the government first came to power, it faced several problems in the fight against corruption. Firstly, the law of Prevention of Corruption Ordinance was weak. Corruption was not a seizable offence and the powers provided in the law were inadequate to enable officers in the Bureau to carry out their duties effectively. Furthermore, obtaining evidence was difficult because of the weak anti-corruption law and many corrupt public officers managed to get away with their crime.
Secondly, public officers were not as highly paid as compared to those in the private sector. Some of them became indebted due to lack of savings to tide them over difficult times and some resorted to corruption to make ends meet.
To complicate matters further, the CPIB officers were drawn from the Singapore Police Force on short secondment and were therefore not psychologically prepared to committing themselves to fighting corruption. Finally, the population was generally less educated then and did not know their rights. As a result, the only way they knew how to get things done was through bribery. The country was rife with corruption and the government resolved to create a climate of honesty and integrity making corruption socially unacceptable.
"Staying clean and dismissing the venal" is one of the guiding principles of the PAP Government. They believed that corruption control has strategic significance in national development.
Today, Singapore is a nation where corruption is well under control in both the private and public sectors. This is due to:
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