TODAY: NKF: The big buzz

Online com­mu­nity reac­tions range from amuse­ment to outrage

IN JULY, just after the National Kid­ney Foun­da­tion (NKF) scan­dal broke, some­one started a blog called “Jus­tice For NKF Donors” (justice4nkfdonors.blogspot.com) detail­ing key points in the inves­ti­ga­tion into the man­age­ment of the char­ity organisation.

At time of writ­ing, that blog had not yet been updated with reac­tions to Monday’s release of the exter­nal auditor’s report.

But other local blog­gers have been quick on the ball — busily doc­u­ment­ing their responses to the 400-plus page report.

As blog­ger Merv (atypicalsingaporean.blogspot.com) put it, this is “bet­ter than watch­ing King Kong”.

Read more at TODAY­On­line.

Tech­no­rati Tags: NKF, sin­ga­pore, TODAY

Some of the early reac­tions on the web are as follows:

A www.pink-ist.com entry read: “As a pre­vi­ous staff of NKF way back in 2000, I was some­what shocked by the find­ings! … the more I read about the report, the angrier I felt … Never mind I was one of (TT Durai’s) ‘Pro­fes­sional Beg­gars’. I pity the patients who are under the NKF’s care now. The trust is gone after so many years and it would be dif­fi­cult to rebuild that kind of trust. Its like a betrayal, ya?”

A sly note on livejournal.com/users/fogster opined: “Won­der whether I should send in a note with the (dona­tion) card say­ing, ‘Not for buy­ing your Mercedes.’”

Mean­while, a note on happycitizen.blogspot.com said: “See what hor­rors trans­parency brings. Let me urge Sin­ga­pore­ans NEVER EVER let another NKF type rev­e­la­tion hap­pen, it is so painful to know the truth. Stop try­ing to dig into var­i­ous insti­tu­tions to find out what they are doing. Just have trust — trust makes you feel good and sleep well at night.”

Over at ourlifexp.com: “I guess this report is a slap on the face for peo­ple who vet­ted and defended Mr Durai.”

the­wormiepage. blogspot.com had this to say: “It seems that not all ques­tions are answered … Every­one is wait­ing eagerly for a com­ment from the Min­istry of Health.

“The Tax­man and CPIB are still look­ing into the issues. When the dust set­tles, it is hoped that frame­works are in place to have a bet­ter check-and-balance …

“This is impor­tant not only for kid­ney patients but for all those who are depen­dant on char­i­ta­ble organisations.

“Once the pub­lic is con­vinced that the chances of mis­man­age­ment is nil or marked reduced, then dona­tions will start to pour in.”

Said truelymadly.blogspot.com: “Had Durai and the NKF not sued SPH and Ms Susan Long for defama­tion, these issues may never have come to light, and the state of affairs at the NKF may just have gone on for­ever … What a bloody disgrace.”

If you want to read more about what neti­zens are say­ing, try a Google or technorati.com search on the name “NKF”.

It’s a search key­word I’m sure will rise up the pop­u­lar­ity ranks this week.

Mr Miyagi aka Ben­jamin Lee has been enter­tain­ing read­ers at miyagi.sg for over a year, but you won’t find a sin­gle peanut joke on his website.

WIDER LESSONS?

Under­grad­u­ate Gabriel, aka “aga­googa”, down­loaded “all 442 pages” in order to “draw up a National Edu­ca­tion les­son plan on “Lessons we can learn from the NKF””, he writes on his blog gssq.blogspot.com.

Les­son 10, for instance, which reflects on KPMG’s com­ments about the NKF’s audit com­mit­tee, is that “trust­ing in the assur­ances of organ­i­sa­tions that they have inter­nal safe­guards is not a wise thing.

“The scrutiny of organ­i­sa­tions work­ing for the pub­lic good by the pub­lic and inde­pen­dent bod­ies is essen­tial to ensure that they are ful­fill­ing their stated mission.”

Les­son 12 refers to the found­ing of the Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee and del­e­ga­tion of pow­ers to Mr Durai: “Mak­ing Faus­t­ian bar­gains — sur­ren­der­ing one’s polit­i­cal rights as mem­bers of a board of gov­er­nance in return for an assur­ance of future pros­per­ity and mon­e­tary suc­cess — is a recipe for disaster.”

Les­son 13 derives from Mr Durai’s role: “Cen­tral­is­ing too much power in one per­son, and rais­ing his sig­nif­i­cance and impor­tance to such a level that he comes to dom­i­nate the organ­i­sa­tion, is unhealthy.

“One can only imag­ine how much worse it would be if a per­son­al­ity cult were formed around this key figure.”