Singapore’s public officers are among the world’s best paid, with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong earning a total compensation of about $2.2 million yearly. That’s a strategy its political leaders say has kept corruption low.
Singapore was rocked by news this week that a cabinet minister and a property tycoon were arrested in one of the most serious graft cases in nearly four decades.
The unravelling case involving Transport Minister S. Iswaran and Ong Beng Seng threatens to dent the image of a country that prides itself on probity and clean government. Singapore has always been among the 10 least-corrupt in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index since it began in 1995.
