Something that Singapore is now doing can after all prove instructive for Malaysia, as well.

Recently, the city-state's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, revised codes of conduct for ministers and members of Parliament, so as to keep the public better informed on the levels of accountability its lawmakers must do to uphold integrity in a system.

It is not that the city-state has never had such a code. It is the very timing of the announcement.

Though it could not have been more opportune - than to emit in the immediate afterglow of Mohd Isa Samad's recent implication over money politics it probably is due to the driving need to reassure its public that dishonesty of any form has no place in squeaky clean Singapore.

The spirit of the announcement, notwithstanding, is also a signal to all concerned that Singapore is not a 'free-for-all' city, regardless of whatever the passage of time.

Like the lodestar in the heavens, honesty in public dealings is a constant that never changes. And the premium it holds in Singapore, remains just the way it's been and will always.