Oil, bribes, politicians: what happened to ‘clean’ Singapore?
Known for its stout anti-corruption ethos, the Lion City is reeling from its biggest corporate corruption scandal
One political observer went as far as to describe 2017 as “annus horribilis” for the city state’s corporate sector. That sentiment echoed the hand-wringing among government critics that followed last week’s announcement by US prosecutors that Keppel’s offshore and marine arm, Keppel O&M, agreed to pay a US$422 million settlement to avoid a criminal trial for bribing Brazilian officials.
Keppel O&M, according to court documents released by the US justice department, engaged in a scheme between 2001 and 2014 to pay US$55 million in bribes to win 13 contracts with Petrobas and Sete Brasil – two Brazilian oil companies deeply mired in the country’s wide-ranging Operation Car Wash graft scandal. Keppel O&M is the world’s biggest builder of oil rigs.
The US$55 million topped the nearly US$19 million in bribes that were involved at a scandal at state-linked shipbuilder Singapore Technologies Marine, making it the biggest corruption case to hit one of the so-called Singapore Inc companies linked to state sovereign wealth firm Temasek Holdings.
The earlier case – which culminated this year with seven people including the company’s former president being jailed – had already raised worries over whether the Lion City was slipping in its intolerance for graft.