Speech by Senior Minister of State for Law and Finance, Ms Indranee Rajah S.C., at the Anti-Corruption Summit 2016

12 May 2016 Posted in Speeches

1. Thank you Mr Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to share Singapore’s experience. We recognise that there is no one size fits all, and different countries are at different stages of development and, face different challenges. So this is not a prescriptive sharing, but just a sharing of our own journey.

2. Where we come from is to take a zero-tolerance approach to corruption. Over the last 50 years, we’ve tried to build an entire culture of anti-corruption. It really starts with political will. In this, we were extremely fortunate to have had Mr Lee Kuan Yew and his team, our first cabinet, which really drove anti-corruption and that has really been the hallmark of every successive cabinet since.

3. Then from political will, you build a framework - a legal framework. So for us, the lynchpin is Prevention of Corruption Act. With its really strict provisions, it targets both the briber as well as the receiver of the bribe. It has extra-territorial effect on Singaporeans who commit corruption overseas. It has very strict offences and it protects the whistleblower, except if the Courts say that the name of the whistleblower is to be disclosed. And you need to have a strong judiciary, you need to have a really strong prosecution arm, which we do in the Attorney-General’s Chambers.

4. That’s the legislative framework. But the best laws in the world will get you nowhere if you don’t have strong enforcement. For that we have set up the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau, actually something from the time of the British when they were in Singapore. It was the first investigation bureau for corruption in the world as I understand it. They report directly to the Prime Minister. So no one is above the law. They are empowered to investigate anybody including other ministers.

5. Then you also need a very strong public service – professional administration with a strong public service ethos. The salaries of our public service are pegged to the private sector so that it’s competitive and you don’t have that desire or temptation to earn extra money on the side, as it were. But most important, it’s the ethos of public service. The public service is there to serve the people and that means no corruption.

6. Above all, there is a sense amongst the people that this is a country, a place that has no tolerance for corruption. So Singaporeans expect that there should be no corruption and they expect that of their leaders, they expect that of the public service, they expect that of the public agencies. So it’s really just building an entire culture, and technology is just one part of it. But you can’t succeed on technology alone, you need to build an entire environment. Thank you.

Last updated on 13 May 2016