We’re pretty lucky to have the opportunity to live in Singapore.
Of course, like any other country, Singapore isn’t perfect.
It has its fair share of ups and downs, but at least we have enough masks to tide us over the Wuhan virus period, according to the Ministry of Health.
And we have a massive waterfall in the middle of our Airport.
These random perks have to count for something right?
Unfortunately, Singapore is slipping in at least one area:
S’pore Slipped 1 Spot & Ranked 4th As the Least Corrupted Country in the World
Singapore has been ranked the fourth least corrupt country in the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) 2019.
Sounds great right?
And get this, Singapore is the only Asian country in the top 10, out of a total of 180 countries. That’s pretty impressive.
The CPI was started in 1995 and ranks the countries according to the perceived levels of public sector corruption.
They are assigned a score from a scale of 0 for highly corrupt to 100 for very clean.
Singapore scored the same points as Sweden and Switzerland and ranked fourth.
At the very top of the list was Denmark and New Zealand which scored 87 each. Next was Finland in third place with a score of 86.
Despite that, it was observed by Berlin-based organisation Transparency International that this year’s index showed that most of the countries showed little to no improvement in its fight against corruption.
The United States Has Lowest Score In Eight Years
Here’s more bad news. The United States came in with a score of 69, which is the lowest score it has attained in eight years.
Other countries that are at the bottom of the rankings include Somalia (9), Syria (13) and South Sudan (12).
Although Singapore performed fairly well and ranked fourth place, it did do better in previous years.
A year before in 2018, Singapore was ranked third with the same score of 85.
Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau director Denis Tang said, “While Singapore has done relatively well in the fight against corruption as attested by several international surveys, we must not allow this to lull us into a sense of complacency.”
“In fact, we must work even harder to ensure that incorruptibility remains part of the DNA of every Singaporean.”
