The TT Durai/NKF saga (3)

All is well now. Mr TT Durai, the Board of Management of the NKF and its patron, Mrs. Goh Chok Tong, wife of our Senior Minister (ex-Prime Minister), have all resigned. Mr. Gerald Ee, son of the late well-known philantropist, Mr. Ee Peng Liang, is appointed interim CEO of NKF. He will help to sort out the finance and audit before a new CEO and Board take over. Names have already been thrown up and the public will hear of them soon.

How do I feel? Better, I guess. I resonate with some of the views advanced in the newspapers following the saga. For example, I agree with the view that his $25,000 a month pay is not really an issue. After all, I also believe that a full-time church worker should be paid his dues (with the dwindling number of priests and religious these days, lay people are called to more active participation in Church). The issue that begrudged me much in this NKF saga is that Durai is getting too big for his role. I mean, it is not good for Durai the man to be synonomous with the organisation. Sure, we hear of people whose work becomes their baby, but to what extent should such people play a "father" role? As father, you can love, punish and demand that your words be "gospel truths" but a charitable organisation such as NKF is funded with public donations. Therefore, the public donors themselves also have a "father" role. The public donors are not "clients" of NKF. They are stakeholders too and so should have a say as to how funds are used. Alas, the public donors of NKF have left it in the hands of one man and his Board to organise and to roll out the benefits. Given that Durai did a good job at organising and managing the "company", alas again, there was no checks to see what proportion of the public funding actually goes into helping the needy. The rest, as the NKF's ways of management came to light, is history and stands as a lesson for other charities to be wary of how they use public funds.

The NKF was reported to have an excess of S$262 million in reserves. At this point, I am wondering if the NKF ever thought about offering some of these excesses to the other charities who are in need of help.

My feel is that the man at the helm of charitable organisations should be clear about his objectives. Is he really there because he desires to help the poor and needy? Is he there for professional status? Is he there to feed his own ego? Given that there are people who truly believe in the cause/s of their charities, it is important that those people take time to "know thyself" on a routine basis. Otherwise, a day may come when the ministry of helping the poor and needy becomes a job and the job feeds the ego. When the "I" kicks in, that's when the trouble comes.