Singapore up at 3rd place in annual ranking of least corrupt countries

Singapore

SINGAPORE has moved up three notches to third spot in an annual ranking of countries deemed to have the least corruption in the public sector, with Denmark and New Zealand ahead of it.

The Republic scored 85 on graft watchdog Transparency International's 2018 Corruption Perceptions Index, which uses a scale that goes from zero, for highly corrupt, to 100, for very clean.

The index, released on Tuesday, also shows that globally, most countries continue to fail in reining in corruption significantly, said Berlin-based Transparency International.

Similar to 2017, more than two-thirds of the countries scored below 50, with an average score of only 43. Since 2012, only 20 countries - including Estonia and Ivory Coast - have si…