It has taken the government many years to grant Singapore the premium
of having an almost clean and “corrupt-free” administration. The
Internal Security Department, the Criminal Record Office, and the
CPIB have played an important role in support of the initiative. They
are given the responsibility of screening potential public officers before
letter-of-offers are sent to successful candidates. This ensures to some
extent that the officers recruited are of high integrity.
This article has highlighted the positive and negative consequences
of the UGE, and concludes that containing the growth of the UGE
ought to bring forth more benefit than harm to an economy. Among
the causes of the UGE, we focus on corruption and develop a simple
framework to link the UGE and corruption. This is followed by an
exposition on Singapore’s experience in curbing corruption.