19 Aug 2005

Singapore NKF Seeks Help From CAD - Report

August 18, 2005 02:01 ET

Singapore NKF Seeks Help From CAD - Report

SINGAPORE (Dow Jones)--The National Kidney Foundation, Singapore's largest charity, has asked police to look into "certain matters of grave concern," Channel NewsAsia reports Thursday, citing a statement from NKF.

The news channel said the problems were uncovered by the charity's interim board of directors, which the government appointed about a month ago.

NKF said it's not at liberty to discuss these matters as they have been referred to the police's Commercial Affairs Department, or CAD, Channel NewsAsia said.

The NKF saga started in mid-July when it took Singapore Press Holdings Ltd. (T39.SG) and one of its writers to court for defamation.

In the course of the trial, details emerged on the pay and perks that its then-chief executive T.T. Durai was getting. Lawyers for SPH also showed that NKF had overstated the number of patients at its dialysis centers and understated about how long its S$200 million-plus reserves would last if it discontinued its fund-raising activities.
Public pressure led to the resignation of Durai and the NKF board, and the Health Ministry stepped in to appoint an interim board and chief executive.

NKF officials weren't immediately available for comment.



1 comment:

Anonymous said...

both the NKF trouble and the Nicholl Highway incident reveal poor handling of negative feedback; the LTA engineer Chow Peng Wah committed suicide because of stress arising from his awareness of the design deficiencies, but his views were not taken seriously by the people with the power to change things; instead of listening to criticisms, NKF tried to suppress them by defamation suits; instead of merely blaming a few individuals, the general question is how people with power handle criticism