Curious as to what our dear leader had to say about corruption since he must have plenty of experience in the laundry business from the famiLee business.
Expected him to say "What's wrong with making money"
However he's got nothing much to say except something about his dad LKY
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong: Success in combating corruption – views on the Singaporean experience
Corruption is a scourge that can never be tolerated. Countries have tried all ways to combat it. They create anti-corruption agencies. They pass strong laws. They promulgate codes of conduct for public officials. Companies pledge to conduct business cleanly. Yet often corruption remains endemic, a cancer in the society. How then has Singapore achieved some measure of success in eradicating corruption? I put it down to four factors.
First, we inherited a clean and working system from the British colonial government. We had many compelling reasons to want to end colonial rule and to be masters of our own destiny. But to their credit, the British left Singapore with a working system and sound institutions – English laws, a working Civil Service, and an efficient and honest judiciary. Importantly, the Colonial Service officers upheld high standards. People like Sir William Goode, our last Governor and first Head of State, had a sense of duty and stewardship. After Singapore, Goode served as Governor of North Borneo, now the state of Sabah in Malaysia. He left an impression in North Borneo, as in Singapore. Even a generation later, the people of Sabah still remembered him fondly.
Second, when the British left, our pioneer leaders were determined to keep the system clean. The People’s Action Party (PAP) first came to power in 1959, when Singapore attained self-government. However, it was by no means a no- brainer for the PAP to fight to win the 1959 General Election.
The country faced a myriad of problems: poverty, poor public health, an acute housing shortage, a stagnant economy and an exploding population. Did the PAP want to inherit these overwhelming problems? Why not become a strong opposition party, and let another party govern and fail?
In the end, what decided the issue for Mr Lee Kuan Yew, our founding Prime Minister, and his team, was the overriding need to prevent the public service from going corrupt. One term of an incompetent, corrupt government and Humpty Dumpty could never be put together again. So the PAP fought to win and formed the Government. When they took their oath of office, Mr Lee and his PAP colleagues wore white shirts and white trousers. It symbolised their determination to keep the Government clean and incorruptible. That set the tone for Singapore ever since.
Third, with strong political will, we institutionalised a robust, comprehensive anti-corruption framework that spans laws, enforcement, the public service and public outreach. We enacted the Prevention of Corruption Act (PCA), which puts the burden of proof on the accused to show that he or she acquired their wealth legally. Any unexplained wealth disproportionate to known sources of income is presumed to be from graft and can be confiscated.
The PCA provides for extra-territorial jurisdiction, so that the actions of Singaporean citizens overseas are treated the same as actions committed in Singapore, regardless of whether such corrupt acts have consequences for Singapore (Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau 2016a).
Our anti-corruption agency, the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB), is well resourced and independent. It is empowered to investigate any person, even police officers and ministers, and conducts public outreach to raise public awareness and shape social norms (CPIB 2016b). We pay public servants fair and realistic wages benchmarked to private sector earnings and, in return, demand the highest standards of integrity and performance.
Fourth, we have over time developed a society and culture that eschews corruption. Singaporeans expect and demand a clean system. They do not condone giving or accepting ‘social lubricants’ to get things done. They readily report corrupt practices when they encounter them. Singaporeans trust that the law applies to all and that the Government will enforce the laws without fear or favour, even when it may be awkward or embarrassing. Businesses have confidence that, in Singapore, rules are transparent and fairly applied. The story is told of a businessman who visited Singapore from an Asian country used to different operating norms. He left puzzled and disturbed that he could not discover the going rate for bribes to officers at different levels of government. He concluded wrongly that the prices must be very high!
Singapore has achieved some success eradicating corruption, but we are under no illusions that we have permanently and completely solved the problem. Corruption is driven by human nature and greed. However strict the rules and tight the system, some individuals will sometimes still be tempted to transgress. When they do, we make sure they are caught and severely dealt with. Two years ago, we charged an Assistant Director from the CPIB itself with misappropriating (S)$1.7 million.
We keep our system clean not just for ourselves, but also to uphold our international reputation. Thus we deal strictly also with those who use financial institutions in Singapore to launder money or transact ill-gotten gains from corruption.
We are zealous in protecting the integrity of our financial centre and business hub.
There is a Chinese proverb: ‘If the top beam is askew, the bottom beams will be crooked.’ Keeping a system clean must start at the very top. A Singapore armed forces officer, on a course overseas, was once asked by his classmate how Singapore kept its system clean. He explained our arrangements and the central role of the CPIB. His classmate asked a follow-up question: but to whom does the CPIB report? The Singaporean ingenuously replied that the CPIB reported directly to the prime minister. This elicited further puzzlement. Much later the Singaporean understood why. The real question he was being asked was, who guards the guardian?
There is no formula to solve this ancient riddle, but we are determined to uphold the highest standards of integrity from the top level of the Government down. In 1996, rumours spread that Mr Lee Kuan Yew and I had received improper discounts on property purchases. The Prime Minister, then Mr Goh Chok Tong, ordered a full investigation, which found that there had been nothing improper. He brought the issue to Parliament, which held a full debate lasting three days (Parliament of Singapore 1996).
Both Mr Lee and I spoke. In his statement Mr Lee Kuan Yew said, “I take pride and satisfaction that the question of my two purchases and those of the Deputy Prime Minister, my son, has been subjected to, and not exempted from, scrutiny … It is most important that Singapore remain a place where no one is above scrutiny, that any question of integrity of a minister, however senior, that he has gained benefits either through influence or corrupt practices, be investigated” (National Archives of Singapore 1996).
Trust is slow to build, but fast to lose. We have spent more than 50 years building up confidence in Singapore. The integrity of the Government, the system and the men and women in charge has been key to Singapore’s success. We are determined that that integrity and reputation must never be undermined and will long remain a competitive edge and a source of pride for Singapore.
11.1 References
Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB). 2016a. Prevention of Corruption Act, Singapore. Available online.
Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB). 2016b. About CPIB. Available online.
National Archives of Singapore. 21 May 1996. Statement by Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew Nassim Jade and Scotts 28. Available online.
Parliament of Singapore. 21–23 May 1996. Purchase of Properties by Senior Minister and Deputy Prime Minister BG Lee Hsien Loong (Statement by the Prime Minister). Available online.
12. Jim Yong Kim: How to tackle corruption to create a more just and prosperous world
Corruption poses an enormous obstacle to international development and the global goal of ending extreme poverty.21 Using public power for private gain is also unjust. It denies resources to the poor, undermines the delivery of services to the vulnerable and weakens the social contract, leading to exclusion, instability and conflict. I am committed to fighting corruption, because it is the right thing to do and because it is critical to achieving the World Bank Group’s twin goals of ending extreme poverty by 2030 and boosting shared prosperity for the poorest 40%.
More than 50 years of development experience has taught us that we can achieve these targets through inclusive growth, investing in people’s health and education and insuring them against risks, such as unemployment or illness, which threaten to plunge them into poverty. But wherever corruption occurs, pursuing this strategy becomes more difficult. In the Philippines, for example, corruption prevented the construction of high-quality roads in some areas, making it harder for goods to get to market and harming growth, incomes and job creation (World Bank 2011; Procurement Watch 2009). In Sierra Leone, it stopped some mothers from immunising their infant children, because nurses demanded rice in exchange for ‘free’ shots (World Bank 2012). In India, many poor people received less financial support from workfare initiatives because officials pocketed the proceeds (Muralidharan, Niehaus and Sukhtankar 2014).
Some countries have experienced growing inequality and lost billions of dollars for public services because of corruption, undermining their very foundations. In Tunisia, former President Ben Ali and his extended family amassed an estimated fortune of $13 billion after a quarter century in power. This amounted to more than a quarter of Tunisian gross domestic product (GDP) in 2011, the year he stepped down in response to mass protests. There were also 220 domestic companies – responsible for at least 21% of the country’s net private sector profits – connected to the family of the President, who had enacted regulations that gave them unfair economic advantages (Rijkers, Freund and Nucifora 2011).
During my tenure at the World Bank Group, I have seen that corruption affects countries regardless of development status and is often an international operation. According to some estimates, businesses and individuals pay between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion in bribes alone each year (Kaufmann 2015). This is about ten times the value of overseas development assistance or approximately 2% of global GDP. Both domestic firms and multinational corporations make payoffs to public officials in exchange for access to commercial opportunities.
The World Bank Group and others have dedicated substantial effort to understanding and monitoring corruption, and developing experience and knowledge of how to tackle the problem. In 1996, at our annual meetings, one of my predecessors, James D. Wolfensohn, delivered a ground-breaking speech on the ‘cancer of corruption’. He seized the opportunity to take on an obstacle to reducing poverty that we, and others, had largely failed to address (Wolfensohn 1996).
Since that time, the World Bank has taken a new approach. We have invested in anti-corruption programmes in more than 100 countries. In 2007, we adopted an organisation-wide governance and anti-corruption strategy, which we updated in 2012. Today our global practices for Governance, and Finance and Markets, as well as our independent integrity group, spearhead work to share with clients our knowledge and experience in fighting corruption, though all parts of the organisation take responsibility for fighting misconduct.
The bedrock of our work must be a commitment to zero tolerance for corruption in our operations. Last year, the World Bank Group committed grants and loans amounting to approximately $56 billion to support projects, programmes and policies critical to reducing poverty and inequality in developing countries. Close scrutiny of how these funds are spent and sanctions for their misuse are critical to ensuring that corruption does not undermine the intended outcome, whether it is raising farmers’ crop yields or improving students’ reading, writing and arithmetic skills.
Working with developing countries, we assess project and loan plans for corruption risk, closely supervise activities and build in monitoring mechanisms, including hotlines to report misconduct. When alleged wrongdoing takes place, our independent integrity group investigates and takes vigorous action if it confirms corruption. We have excluded firms and individuals that engaged in misconduct from receiving contracts that we financed and compelled the return of misused financial support and the cancellation of contracts associated with tainted transactions.
Last year, these efforts rooted out misconduct in connection with 61 projects worth more than $500 million (World Bank 2015). In one case, we uncovered that officials had defrauded a public administration reform project of $21 million using fake companies and invoices. Our investigation has led to the recovery of stolen funds and the Government’s prosecution of its officials. Even with these successes, we understand that fighting corruption requires constant vigilance and that misconduct takes many forms and adapts to new opportunities.
Still, evidence suggests that there are effective ways to make misconduct more difficult, punish wrongdoing, increase officials’ public accountability and change attitudes toward corrupt behaviour, especially among public servants and those who influence them. These actions, which I outline below, are helping countries make critical development strides, including building better roads, improving access to education and medicine, and providing the poor with sufficient support from social safety nets.
