Tuesday, February 13, 2007
The National Kidney Foundation Singapore scandalArticle: Former Singapore charity head on trial for corruption
(Politics/societal issues)
http://www.todayonline.com/articles/174528.aspFinally, Mr Durai is facing up to the music and paying for the crimes that he has committed. A wolf in sheep’s clothing, he deceived many Singaporeans and splurged their hard-earned money. 2/3 of the population of Singapore who had donated their bread and butter to the NKF, and all 2/3 of them had their money cheated. The NKF scandal caused a great amount of outrage from the public, which scarcely surprises me. As a young boy I often donated my pocket money to their charity, under the false impression that all of it would go to the needy. It would therefore come as no surprise to me, that the public, some of whom earn little but still donate, feel injustice at the revelation of the scandal. Being able to understand how many of us Singaporeans felt as a donor myself, I definitely feel sorry for those families who were deceived by the charity. As a Singaporean, it unnerves me that a charming and respectable-looking man like Mr Durai would actually go to such lengths to deceive the public.
After doing my research and readings of the current NKF saga, I have come to the conclusion that we Singaporeans need to be more discerning when it comes to donating money to charities. There are many charities out there that are not what they appear to be. Singaporeans have found this out, to our disappointment, only in recent times. The NKF, the most successful fund-raiser amongst charities in Singapore, got into a lot of trouble and various heads are now being sued for misusing the charity’s funds. Singaporeans, being such a generous lot, donated millions to the NKF, only to find out in the last year or so that the NKF gave its CEO an annual SGD600,000 paycheck, first class airline tickets and other excesses.
As a student, I understand that I may not have a full background understanding of the actually scenario of the NKF scandal. However, sometimes I wonder, if Mr. Durai had not tried to sue Singapore Press Holdings, and thus exposed himself, how much longer would Singapore have been kept in the dark? Would there have been Singaporeans who eventually did their research on the charity they were donating to and exposed them? As such, I would like to appeal to everyone to do something about it. The first thing everyone should do before they decide to donate to a charity, at the very least, would be to do some research before they do so. Ask questions. Find out where our money is going. How much are staff salaries? How much, especially, is the president or CEO, or MD paid? How much money actually goes to the cause? Should we wait till some random charity, say the NKF, gets exposed due to a blunder on their part, or should we do our research before giving, and if they are corrupt, expose them?
I say we take the second option.
492 words
feared 2:25 AM