Charity urges donors to keep faith to help 4,000 patients
NKF Chairman Mr Koh Poh Tiong, holding a Press Conference, on the sacking of NKF CEO, Edmund Kwok. Photo. Ernest Chua/TODAY
SINGAPORE — With the National Kidney Foundation (NKF) rocked by a second scandal in 11 years involving its top executive, the charity’s chairman yesterday made an impassioned plea for donors to keep their faith in the organisation and expressed his worry that donations could suffer a drop again.
Flanked by fellow board members Dr William Wan and Assoc Prof Abdul Razakjr Omar, NKF chairman Koh Poh Tiong stressed at a hastily convened press conference that the indiscretion of one man — in this case, the NKF’s chief executive officer (CEO) — must not affect the 4,000 patients currently under the charity’s watch.
Mr Koh was speaking to the press after the shock announcement that Mr Edmund Kwok was fired as CEO, following a “personal indiscretion” involving a male subordinate.
Despite being pressed by reporters, the three men declined to provide details on Mr Kwok’s indiscretion, beyond reiterating that it was serious enough to warrant a sacking — following consultation with the organisation’s lawyers — and Mr Kwok did not contest “the facts” when he was given a chance to present his side of the story. Nevertheless, Mr Kwok’s sacking has “nothing to do” with the stewardship of the NKF’s finances and the charity “continues to run unaffected”, stressed Mr Koh, who was “very disappointed” and “extremely sad” about the sacking.
Currently, the charity receives five new cases of kidney failure each day, up from three in 2012. “I am very worried about the number of (kidney) cases coming up,” Mr Koh said. “In 2019, NKF will be celebrating its 50th anniversary. By that time, we will be having another nine to 10 new centres.”
He noted that last year, the NKF’s operations cost about S$100 million. The figure is projected to double in 2020. “So people are asking me: How do we raise the money? I said we will find a way … I appeal to you to help us,” he said to reporters. “NKF will not allow any Singaporean to die because he is poor, and because there is no space for dialysis. I will find the money ... my colleagues are working very hard on this.”
In 2005, the number of NKF donors was about 280,000, before it was hit by revelations of former CEO T T Durai’s extravagance and mismanagement. Mr Durai was eventually jailed on corruption charges following a high-profile court case.
In 2012, when Mr Koh became chairman, the number of donors stood at about 146,000. The figure increased to 160,000 this year, and confidence had been “slowly moving up”, Mr Koh noted.
During the press conference, Mr Koh took pains to point out that the NKF handled Mr Kwok’s sacking “swiftly, unequivocally, with no cover-up”. The board had worked around the clock since Monday last week when a complaint was lodged by the employee. “We’ve been working ... day and night. We’ve been having two hours of sleep,” Mr Koh said.
Dr Wan said the board was not only concerned with being transparent with the public, but it also wanted to make sure that the matter was handled fairly.
“There must be due process,” he reiterated. While the board members felt sorry for sacking Mr Kwok — whom Mr Koh described as “one of the best CEOs” he had worked with — Dr Wan said they could not allow their feelings to interfere with the board’s fiduciary duty. It has a duty to its stakeholders and staff to “do the right thing”, he said. “The only way we can do that is to act the way we did. We terminated him on the lawyers’ advice on the nature of the offence,” said Dr Wan.
Assoc Prof Abdul Razakjr said there was simply no other way to deal with Mr Kwok’s case. “You can say we are whiter than white,” he said.
He added: “When this incident happened, I was shocked and surprised. But at the end of the day, we (have) got to do our job, and decide how to deal with this … We do not wait and sit … NKF is not about one man.”
