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A highly-awaited 300-plus page report on suspect practices by a Singapore charity, the National Kidney Foundation, is out.

The findings by KPMG are startling, from revelations that only 10 cents of every charity dollar went to subsidise patients' direct treatment costs, to wasted opportunities by regulators to commence investigations earlier.

It took 40 professionals 10,000 man hours and five months to piece together the story of what was going on at NKF.

The story they put together was one of an organisation that was losing its way.

First, the report found that there were "deficiencies in meaningful governance" of the foundation.

On the face of it, the not-for-profit charity adopted a business-centric model.

There was a Board and a proliferation of committees in Finance and Audit that could have checks and challenge the management -- all giving the picture of good governance.

But in fact, the report noted that "there was no truly effective governance mechanism capable of challenging executives in their management of the business, and re-directing the NKF to its true purpose as and when needed."

Read KPMG's report on investigation into the National Kidney Foundation (NKF)

NKF Press Release on KPMG's report

Singapore Charity Probe
Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan spoke at a news conference on Wednesday in response to an independent KPMG report released on 19 December.

Read the statement here.
Watch the video here.

Highlights of his speech:

• Government will not comment as investigations are still on-going

• New NKF board will stay on to complete transformation

• Government regulators did follow up on complaints of NKF through the years

• NKF tangible results on patients and healthy reserves were misleading

• Old NKF's proclamation of strong corporate governance was a facade

• Mishandling of contracts and conflicts of interest let down donating public

• NKF was audited over the years but weaknesses went unnoticed

• Even KPMG audit of tax deductible review in 2004 did not uncover flaws

• Government will work with new NKF to prevent any such future recurrence

• Health Ministry will look at more checks and balances with the new NKF

Quotable quotes
"This is a voluntary welfare organisation, which consists of ordinary people drawn from the public and supported by the public. It must therefore fulfil the roles and expectations which the public places upon it. But I stress again, these are decisions which the Board has to take, not for a Minister to direct. Nevertheless, I'm watching very, very closely. And if need be, we will nudge people in the right direction." - Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports Dr Vivian Balakrishnan

"It is very important that NKF rebuild the trust of the public by being transparent, and by accounting to the public and answering all the questions that the public may have." - Senior Minister of State for Health, Dr Balaji Sadasivan

"As a patient, I know the NKF has done a lot for kidney, cancer patients or else we can't afford expensive dialysis. The NKF has done a lot and I hope it will carry on with the good work they have done, as we need the funds for survival." - Dialysis patient Ms Chan Poh Choo, 58