CPIB headquarters in Bukit Merah.
16 August 2012. Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB), the apex anti-corruption agency in Singapore, announced recently in its annual report that it investigated 138 cases in 2011 compared to 323 cases in 2007 and 428 in 2005. Private sector accounted for 75% of the cases investigated. The prominent cases investigated in the recent past included Ng Boon Gay,former chief of the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB), and Peter Lim former chief of the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) involved in sex-for-contract scandals; Professor Tey Tsun Hang from the Law faculty at National University of Singapore linked to a sex-for-grades scandal; and a National Parks Board official in the Brompton bicycle purchase controversy. Cases involving false marriages and scapegoat cases have also been removed from the CPIB portfolio and passed on to other enforcement agencies since 2008. The agency claims that Singapore’s ability to keep corruption under check is due to its four pillars of our anti-corruption framework which include having effective anti-corruption laws, effective adjudication, an efficient administration and effective anti-corruption agency. Law Minister K. Shanmugam said on 5 August 2012 at a national day dinner that there is corruption in Singapore but there is also a system to keep it in check. The minister defended Singapore’s system of meritocracy and said that the system cannot be blamed for the recent high-profile graft cases. Instead he attributed the cases to human nature. He said that corruption in Singapore will not be like in other places where people face corrupt officials in their daily lives. He added, “That is why year after year after year, we rank as one of the cleanest, least corrupt societies in the world and we will continue to be so as long as we have this system in place.”
