CPIB Open House

Every visitor who walked through the gate of the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) usually has a purpose. On 9 December 2012, that purpose was to find out more about the Bureau, its roles and functions and to mingle with its officers. On that day, the gate was opened and the gantry was raised, welcoming visitors from all walks of life.

Its first ever Open House, the visitors got a chance to catch a glimpse of the Bureau behind the gate, to explore the grounds, to learn more about anti-corruption issues, to talk to CPIB officers about their concerns. Many visitors had a fun-filled day too as they were engaged in a myriad of activities including educational talks, guided heritage tours, mass exercise workout, and fringe activities such as badge making and caricature that were specially catered to the junior “graft busters”.

The visitors also grabbed a cuppa coffee at the “Lim’s Kopi” corner. The name came about after popular local blogger Mr Brown wrote a tongue-in-cheek post about CPIB having a lot of corruption cases that year that it has to open a chain of coffee locales island-wide named “Lim’s Kopi”. In good fun, the Bureau designed a banner splashing the words “Lim’s Kopi @ CPIB” to welcome the visitors to the Open House.

9 December is International Anti-Corruption Day and that year (2012), the Chairman of the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Singapore (ICPAS) now known as Institute of Singapore Chartered Accountants presented a document (bearing the signatures of members) to Director CPIB as a commitment of the Institute to uphold the highest standard of integrity. That day also saw the launch of the Poster-Slogan Competition with the theme “Do Your Part to Stamp Out Corruption” as part of the Bureau’s continuous efforts to engage the public.

The Open House was a huge success as every visitor went away, equipped with more knowledge on the perils of corruption and encouraged to do their bit to stamp out corruption, keeping Singapore clean and corruption-free.