Send this to the ST Forum 3: Corruption-Free S'pore

I read with alarm Dr. Robert Kiltgaard's claim that Singapore will be hit by a new wave of corruption. His claim contains certain baseless assumptions that our government needs to robustly refute.

Firstly, the idea of a "new" wave of corruption means that there was an "old wave", so to speak, of corruption. This is totally untrue for we know that Singapore is virtually corruption free. The people who are most likely to be corrupt are paid so well that they won't be corrupt.

Secondly, Dr. Kiltgaard's definition of corruption is baffling. He said, "There's a kind of post-modern corruption coming with property rights problems – copying; you take my design when it was me who invented it. I think Singapore is going to be challenged as we are in America by this new way of corruption." This is ridiculous. It sounds like intellectual theft to me and intellectual theft is intellectual theft. What's so postmodern and corrupt about it?

In any case, copying may not be a bad thing. Look at what the Chinese did with Suzhou Industrial Park.

Furthermore, Dr. Kiltgaard's suggestion that there is a need to reduce monopoly by enhancing competition simply does not work for Singapore. In Singapore, monopolies or virtual monopolies are necessary so that enterprises can make money at the expense of disgruntled whiners.

To prevent corruption, we should use tried and tested methods, including paying the potentially corrupt a high salaries. For the potentially corrupt but non-elite who don't deserve high salaries, we can also come up with a corruption tax, i.e. all those who enter positions or situations in which they could possibly perform a corrupt act will have to pay a price. These steps will ensure that Singapore will remain virtually corruption free.

Finally, if we make certain practices that might be considered corruption legal, then these practices will no longer be corrupt practices. We should deal with postmodern corruption in a postmodern way. For instance, we could make all original ideas public property so that the copying of ideas would not be illegal or corrupt. It's all a matter of definition.

I hope Dr. Kiltgaard understands that Singapore is a small and unique country that will not pander to Western notions of democracy, free expression, corruption, etc.

Lee See Nao