> Countries like Singapore already figured out that if you pay public servants very well you can attract high quality people to government jobs.

I see this argument a lot, but I think it treats people as uniform input-output machines. Singapore is successful in this regard because of much more severe and very real penalties for corruption, and because not "everyone does this". You can't bribe immoral people into behaving morally, because in the absence of morals they have no incentive not to just take your bribe and keep doing what they're doing.

A significant number of corrupt public "servants" are multi-millionaires, no amount of money will ever be enough for them.