SINGAPORE: Despite a number of scandals hitting Singapore in recent months, from sex-for-business, the mega-church City Harvest Church embezzlement case and businessmen paying an underage sex worker for sex, the country's Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) says the country remains one of the least corrupt in the world. Although Singapore dropped to fifth overall from number one on Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index in 2011, the CPIB says that corruption, despite the scandals, is not increasing in the country. It argued in its recent annual report, however that Singapore's 9.2 score out of 10 “means we are perceived as being very clean.” “We have been one of the world's five least corrupt countries in the last five years,” the report added. The CPIB said it continues to monitor corruption practices and the perception scandals have had on the country, but urged citizens to not be discouraged by what it described as a few poor decisions by citizens in the country.
