Graft buster: ICAC Commissioner Ambrose Lee gives his year-end review.

Corruption in Hong Kong remains under control, with a 2% fall in the number of reports received last year.

Saying the "civil service remained generally clean" in 2002, Independent Commission Against Corruption Commissioner Ambrose Lee said, excluding Police, there were 1,073 graft reports concerning Government departments last year - a 0.1% drop on 2001.

Giving his year-end review today, Mr Lee said corruption in the private sector fell 5% to 2,403 cases.

However, cases against Police went up 10% to 565. He said it might be due to extensive publicity generated by one or two major investigations last year.

Mr Lee said individual departments will be approached to provide more help in corruption prevention. There will also be a public education programme.

A special taskforce will be set up to ensure that the upcoming village representative elections are clean and fair.

The Commissioner said there will be further co-operation in training, education and intelligence exchange with the Mainland.

Mr Lee expected the Commission's caseload to remain high this year as the economy has not yet recovered.

The latest poll by the Commission found that 36.8% of respondents, as compared with 25.9% in 2001, anticipated there will be more corruption cases during the year.

"However, there is little cause for alarm," he said. "Over the years, a culture of probity has firmly taken root in the community and a revival of rampant corruption is unlikely."

He also assured that the restructuring and reprioritisation of the Commission's work due to the fiscal deficit will not affect services and the fight against corruption.