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While Singapore was ranked fifth on the Corruption Perceptions Index, this was its lowest ranking in five years
File photo of skyline buildings of the Central Business District in Singapore on Nov 16, 2022. (Photo: CNA/Hanidah Amin)
31 Jan 2023 04:45PM (Updated: 31 Jan 2023 05:02PM)
SINGAPORE: Singapore was ranked as the fifth least corrupt country in the world in 2022, according to anti-corruption body Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI).
However, it was also the lowest ranking in five years for Singapore, which placed third in 2018 and 2020, and fourth in 2019 and 2021. It remains the only Asian country to be in the top 10.
The index ranks 180 countries and territories around the world by their perceived levels of public sector corruption, , scoring on a scale of 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean).
It draws upon 13 expert assessments and surveys of business people, according to the Corrupt Practices Investigations Bureau (CPIB) in a news release on Tuesday (Jan 31).
CPIB said the corruption situation in Singapore “remains firmly under control”.
“The annual corruption statistics released by the CPIB last year indicated that the number of public sector corruption cases has remained consistently low over the years,” it said.
Domestically, CPIB said results from its public perception survey conducted in 2022 indicated strong public confidence in national corruption control efforts.
“For the biennial survey of over 1,000 respondents in Singapore, 96 per cent rated Singapore’s corruption control efforts to be effective, an improvement from 94 per cent in 2020,” CPIB added.
Political determination, heavy punishment for corruption offences and a zero-tolerance culture for corruption were the top three most important factors that contributed to the low corruption rate in Singapore, it said.
Singapore also did well across other international indices for incorruptibility and clean public sector.
The Political and Economic Risk Consultancy ranked it as the least corrupt country out of 16 economies in its 2022 Report on Corruption in Asia – a position it has held since 1995.
It also came in third for absence of corruption in the World Justice Project Rule of Law Index 2022, making it the top Asian nation out of the 140 countries on the list.
