Hong Kong Municipality office boy
According to Robert Rotberg’s ‘The Corruption Cure,’ Hong Kong had been full of corruption ever since its inception towards the end of the 19th century when endless organized gangs and corruption prevailed. It was ruled by several British governors but none of them managed to end corruption and some of them even helped it spread. In 1974, Governor Murray MacLehose established the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) to fight and clean up corruption in the many departments of the Hong Kong government. Its aim was to investigate all corruption cases without exceptions and was the largest in the region that commenced its work by interrogating 18,000 police officers over charges of corruption.
The will to fight corruption started with the ruling politicians
In 1980, ICAC shifted to investigating private sector corruption cases and had the authority to prosecute suspects and refer them to courts. Its power expanded to spread the culture of fighting corruption amongst people. This means that it did not settle at receiving complaints but went beyond that to willingly get rid of corruption. It studied about corruption in traffic and education. Thanks to its vast powers the severity of its penal measures and the neutrality of its officials, Hong Kong was ranked 12th worldwide in terms of cities with the least amount of corruption in the period of 19952005. When China took over the city in 1997, the people of Hong Kong had already detested corruption and the city was the best in levels of integrity.
Corruption fighting measures were very severe in both Hong Kong and Singapore without any discrimination or leniency with suspects. Corruption fighting started from the top as they realized that ladders should be cleaned from top downwards. They never blamed the municipality office boys of corruption in Hong Kong or Singapore. ICAC did not demand a nice piece of land overlooking the seafront to build its headquarters. No law was set to grant its officials salaries in astronomical figures. The will and determination to fight all forms of corruption started with the ruling politicians. Is it too hard for those in our case to learn the lesson from Hong Kong or Singapore?