Small is nimble, and this is one quality Singapore has in abundance.
While the rest of the world flails around post-Enron to conceive measures to improve corporate governance, Singapore, as ever, has taken the simple, direct, route-one approach.
It doesn't take a genius to work out that relationships become more cosy over time. In auditing this is as true as in any other part of the business world. So Singapore's MAS has now ruled that the city state's three major banks must rotate their auditors every five years - and must make their next change before 2006.
This is eminently sensible. Why? Well, if you know you are only going to be auditing a company for five years, then your capacity to turn a blind eye diminishes significantly - because you know a rival auditor will arrive in year five and spend the first year seeking to make sure there was no funny business in the previous five.
Indeed, this policy move is so sensible, Singapore should definitely extend it to the rest of the corporate world.
And the rest of the world should think long and hard about following the Lion State's roaring lead.
