600K Peanut

Wow!! Finally, i am in blog too....hmmmm...

Let me start my 1st blog title with "600K Peanut"

U many be wondering why i am using "600K peanut", right?
Well, if u are residents of Singapore in the past few years, u will know what it means. Some sad things happened here in Singapore, abusing of power and corruption in few charity organisations. Corruption in Singapore? U may ask. Yes!! in Singapore and it is a big one.....hmmmm ..... Sad thing isn't it :-(

It started with this biggest charity organisation name "National Kidney Foundation" ( NKF ) few years ago, which majority of its fund was donated by general public. It was a big earthquake in Singapore......

The CEO got himself high salary, around SGD$600K per year, plus many perks. Wa-lau!! Charity organisation leh, SGD$600K per year?? Yes !! But not only that.... business class when flying out for meetings...

Until one fine day, a contractor went to do renovation work in the office and one of the requests was to install gold-plated tap for the CEO office's toilet ( wash room ).... The contractor was an odinary Singaporean, who was angry with the way the organisation spending its donors' money. So, the news leaked... after sometime, it reached the media. The reporter decided to write an ariticle about this.

Ha... the organisation CEO was angry with the defamation and together with the committee members, they sued the reporter and the press. It had successfully sued 2 parties b4, so this time, they were confident that they will clear their names.

Hmmm.... Well, not this time! They calculated wrongly, they lost!! As the court hearing went on, more dirty things were dug out.... and it lead to the fall of the CEO and the entire committee... Government stepped in, appointed new CEO and team, got auditor to check all books.....

Wow!! the former CEO treated NKF like its family-owned biz, one man managed organisation. He involved in almost everything, especially money-related issues.... outsourced projects to friends and own company.... Those committee members don't know do what, may be they just make use of NKF to build their own profile. Nobody bother to know what the CEO is doing.

Now, the 600K Peanut comes in..... during the courts hearing..... my respected former PM, Mr Goh's wife, whom is a close friend of the former CEO, made a comment, which made many Singaporeans angry the following day... Mrs Goh said that with the NKF capacity and the amount of money raised by the former CEO, SGD$600K is just a peanut !!! I was totally disappointed with the words came out from my respected fomer PM's wife.

I disagree, Mrs Goh.... To you, SGD$600K may be Peanut, but many of the donors may not earn this much in their entire life. Believe me, this is true. If this is peanut, why did the former CEO reluctant to reveal his salary and other packages? Besides, this is a charity organisation, not IBM, HP, Shell, Google etc... All the money is from ordinary Singaporeans, whom some of them monthly take home is less than SGD$1K. No matter how, nobody should treat it like a commercial organisation. Anyone who wants to work in charity organisation should not expect market-rate salary like those commercial organisation. Day one, he/she should know this is a public-funded organisation.

The development of this case, till today ( 23June07 ).... has made the former Chairman, Mr Richard Yong, bankrupt and he sold all his properties and ran away from law.... sigh... haiz!! i remember he made appeals to the public for more donation, saying he couldn't sleep and worrying for the patients as the organisation has insufficient funds to support them for the next few years... he cried !! Yes, he cried .... But now, what happened to him ?? He ran away ..... Isn't it insulting?? Good acting right? Should have gotten him an acting award...

Now, the former CEO is being convicted for using a fake SGD$20K invoice to deceive NKF, he is sentenced to 3months jail. He will appeal soon. Besides, he is also ordered to pay SGD$4.0millions to the new NKF for the losses and damages it suffered. Well, lets see if he also run away....

I used to defend NKF in the past whenever somebody said bad things about it. I was a regular donor, even during my difficult time. I have since terminated the donation, may be will resume later when everything is back in order. I have changed my opinion on charity organisations, unlike last time, now i question when approach for donation.

Recent months, many charity organisations here were found to have mis-managed funds. The latest was 2 days ago, St John's Home for Elderly, the Superintendent took away SGD$3.88Million and is now uncontactable. He is in his 60s and has 2 grown-up sons, not sure if the whole family run away together.

Well, greed is inside every human beings, when the temptation is too strong to resist, some many give up morale and choose to act something which they were taught by parents and teachers not to.....

That is life..... and it goes on....

贪婪 - 人类基本潜在的特性。

贪小便宜 - 满街都是，小贪者也。在我们的日常生活每天都有。都是你，我和他。哈！
贪得无厌 - 往往都是没了理智，不懂得收手，最终被抓。
人心不足，蛇吞象 - 特大贪，一次过要做皇帝。不过，通常都是消化不了。最终也伤了自己。