Transparency and anti-corruption are equally important, if not more important.

If sex-for-favour is a new kind of corruption, then the lack of transparency can also lead to more corruptions.  Anti-corruption is the work of CPIB, however, transparency will expose everything to the public.

Transparency is a deterrent to corruption. An open, clear and transparent public administration will subject its officials not only to internal check and control, but in addition to the external and public check and control.

It is to the benefit of the government to be transparent, be it a tender exercise, a release of information or data, or even public policy and strategy. 

The tender of the folding bicycle; the selection of the National Conversation committee members; the population details; the release of re-restatement of our reserves; all seem falling below the first world standard of transparency.

PM Lee said the government will not tolerate corruption. However, he did not mention a word of transparency. He may think it is irrelevant as transparency and corruption are two different things. However, a high transparency level has helped to prevent corruption in many first world countries. Public officials know that they are responsible for the information or statistics released and they cannot release partial or incomplete information.

SINGAPORE - Despite high-profile graft allegations involving public officers recently, corruption involving the Government forms "only a small proportion" of all cases here and is not a worsening trend, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said yesterday. 

The Government will nevertheless throw the book at anyone involved in corruption and wrongdoing, even if this comes at the expense of its reputation, Mr Lee warned. 

"Let me be quite clear - we will never tolerate corruption; we will not accept any slackening or lowering of standards," he said in a speech at the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau's (CPIB) 60th anniversary celebration. "Anyone who breaks the rules will be caught and punished. No cover-up will be allowed, no matter how senior the officer or how embarrassing it may be."

He added: "It's far better to suffer the embarrassment and to keep the system clean for the long-term than to pretend that nothing has gone wrong and to let the rot spread." (Today 19 Sept 2012)

Transparency will not affect the reputation of Singapore and it will not embarrass the government too as everyone knows a responsible government is a transparent government. 

CPIB has helped to prevent corruption in Singapore and makes Singapore one of the leading least corrupted countries in the world. But we certainly need to catch up on the transparency level – we are yet to become the world leading transparent country.