Useless rantings of a few disgruntled S'poreans...

Case for transparency.

THE independent auditors' report on National Kidney Foundation (NKF) activities will be released soon, and staff have been told to prepare for a strong public reaction to the findings.

NKF staff interviewed by The Straits Times said they had been told the report by auditor KPMG is 'not very favourable' and 'quite negative'.

When asked by The Straits Times to comment on this, Community Development, Youth and Sports Vivian Balakrishnan, said it does not matter whether the report is good or bad, but whether it is transparent, complete and accurate so that people's trust can be restored.

The new NKF board had ordered an independent audit into the organisation's finances in July. A press conference on the issue had been planned for Thursday but was cancelled at short notice.

Interim NKF chairman Gerard Ee said the NKF decided to 'change the order of the information released'. Findings of the KPMG report will be released first, followed by details on NKF reserves.

The charity has stopped all active fund raising and donors are still cutting contributions.

For the NKF cancer charity shows held in July, donors defaulted on about $518,000 in donations. About 40,000 regular donors have also stopped their monthly donations.

However, a Singaporean businessman in Hong Kong recently donated $100,000 to the NKF to help its 1,862 patients on dialysis.

Dr Balakrishnan said it is understandable that people who were angry or uncertain might want to withhold donations.

He added: 'Let's give some time, for things to settle down, for the facts to come out, and for new management of NKF to establish and improve itself. I think people will resume their donations.'

posted by at82 @ 11/12/2005 11:00:00 PM