Free Corruption Singapore
A Dynamic Game of Risk Control:
A New Perspective on Singapore’s National Integrity System
By Tan Tay Keong
Corruption Control in Singapore
During the country’s formative years in the 1950s and 1960s, corruption was rampant in Singapore. Syndicated corruption was rampant among police officers, public health inspectors, customs officials, and school administrators. Corruption was a way of life in the city during the British colonial rule and the Japanese occupation.
In his Annual Report in 1950, the Commissioner of Police revealed a worsening of the corruption problem in the post-war period and that graft was rife in government departments in Singapore.” In the 1950s, the Anti-Corruption Branch (a section of the Criminal Investigation Department) was too weak to tackle the extensive bribery, extortion, and protection rackets. By the late fifties, corruption was such a scourge that the People’s Action Party (PAP) made stamping out graft a major tenet of its party platform, the white shirts of PAP candidates symbolizing the party’s commitment to clean government. The PAP won the 1959 general elections and has been in power in Singapore ever since. In his memoirs, long-time Prime Minister and now Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew recalled the widespread graft which infested the bureaucracy in the early years after Singapore’s independence:
Corruption used to be organized on a large scale in certain areas. In 1971 the CPIB [Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau] broke up a syndicate of over 250 mobile squad policemen who received payments ranging from S$5 to S$10 per month from lorry owners whose vehicles they recognized by the addresses painted on the side of the lorries. Those owners who refused to pay would be constantly harassed by having summonses issued against them.
Customs officers would receive bribes to speed up the checking of vehicles smuggling in prohibited goods. Personnel in the Central Supplies Office (the government’s
A New Perspective on Singapore’s National Integrity System
By Tan Tay Keong
Corruption Control in Singapore
During the country’s formative years in the 1950s and 1960s, corruption was rampant in Singapore. Syndicated corruption was rampant among police officers, public health inspectors, customs officials, and school administrators. Corruption was a way of life in the city during the British colonial rule and the Japanese occupation.
In his Annual Report in 1950, the Commissioner of Police revealed a worsening of the corruption problem in the post-war period and that graft was rife in government departments in Singapore.” In the 1950s, the Anti-Corruption Branch (a section of the Criminal Investigation Department) was too weak to tackle the extensive bribery, extortion, and protection rackets. By the late fifties, corruption was such a scourge that the People’s Action Party (PAP) made stamping out graft a major tenet of its party platform, the white shirts of PAP candidates symbolizing the party’s commitment to clean government. The PAP won the 1959 general elections and has been in power in Singapore ever since. In his memoirs, long-time Prime Minister and now Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew recalled the widespread graft which infested the bureaucracy in the early years after Singapore’s independence:
Corruption used to be organized on a large scale in certain areas. In 1971 the CPIB [Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau] broke up a syndicate of over 250 mobile squad policemen who received payments ranging from S$5 to S$10 per month from lorry owners whose vehicles they recognized by the addresses painted on the side of the lorries. Those owners who refused to pay would be constantly harassed by having summonses issued against them.
Customs officers would receive bribes to speed up the checking of vehicles smuggling in prohibited goods. Personnel in the Central Supplies Office (the government’s
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