Inflated bonuses. Exaggerated costs. Seeming cronyism. All these, in above the golden tap, the pricey toilet bowl, glass panelled showers, flying first class, and golden peanuts.

What else is new?

The old NKF never cease to amaze us all. Perhaps no story is more more astonishing than this, other than finding that your wife is sleeping with your brother and all your friends, or that she is a bisexual having an affair with your own sister and all her girlfriends. Or perhaps, finding that your kid is actually not yours.

And are we all not surprised that there’s really more shit to be told in this mess? What they were surprised about is what took them so long.

The startling facts:

• Only 10% of whatever was collected from donations went to patients. Yep, you donate $1, patients get 10 cents only;
• Actually supporting 1745 patients but claimed to be 2000;
• Actually helping 3388 patients but claimed to be 5000 – 6000;
• Actually subsidised 145, but claimed to have helped 2900 – 3600 children with it’s Children Medical Funds;
• Using figure which included all primary school pupils who had health screenings done at their schools by NKF and claimed that the Children’s Medical Fund supported 45000 suffering children;
• Pegged the cost of haemodialysis at $2,600 per patient per month, but by KPMG calculations, it was $1,502;
• Claimed its patient subsidy averages $1,475 a month when the actual subsidy: $377 a month;
• Claimed to have saved patients more than $3.5 million by offering them lower drug prices and subsidies but actually made close to $1 million each year, in 2003 & 2004, in gross profit from the sale of such drugs;
• Actually raised $16.9 million but claimed to have raise $17.2 million in last year’s charity show;
• Spent $5.7 million instead of $4.9 million to produce last year’s charity show;
• Actually raised $12,906,096 but claimed to have raise $12,947,033 for the Children’s Medical Fund through the charity shows;
• Spent $5 million instead of $3.9 million to produce the charity shows;
• Actually only $242,440 but claimed it raised $252,440 during its Good Samaritan’s Day in August last year;
• Claimed that it spent $75,699 on the project but the auditors found that it spent ‘in excess’ of $75,699; and
• Failed to pass on the rebates it got on its bulk purchase of medicine (e.g. one drug costs $25. It gave patients a $13 discount and charged them $12. But NKF paid only $8.20 for the drug. It pocketed a 46% profit.

That last one is really ultimate but it reminds me of a particular million dollar fcukwit’s lecturing Workers’ Party MP Mr Low Thia Kiang about ‘Economics 101’ when Low was asking about how HDB give subsidies and yet made profits. The old NKF is such a good student.

The gory details:

• Salary increments (Notable cases: One doubles a fundraiser’s pay in less than a year and another to more than 6 times the original pay in 5 years.);
• Special bonuses that were ‘event specific’ and also to those who got married ;
• Ex gratia exit payments up to 10 months of salary were paid were paid to staff when they quit;
• 3.3 million paid out to a subsequently defunct and non-existent company (owned by Durai’s personal friend and subsequently went defunct) for a software which it fails to deliver;
• Overpayment of a total of $455,000 to two different companies (first one owned by the same friend, with Matilda Chua as a SVP in it, and the second which Durai himself is a Director) to run a telemarketing centre that failed to meet its targets;
• Paid $611,000 for the grand prize of a three-bedroom apartment at Monterey Park condominium in the West Coast;
• Charged that cost to the 2003 Charity Show accounts instead of the 2004 one;
• $114,980 Bonuses and CPF payments given to some staff as a reward for their work on the 2004 Charity Show, were not accounted as an expense;
• Income of $285,714 from insurance company Aviva was put down as a donation; and
• A $70,000 to Las Vegas for him and five members of the events marketing team, including a former board member and a senior volunteer with nothing to show.

Damn! I wanna go Las Vegas too. I wanna sign up. Just too bad the old NKF is gone.

The golden ‘peanut’:

• Charged $1.2 million a year (90% of the running cost of its CEO’s office) as part of treatment cost;
• A monthly average credit card bill of of $32,952 last year;
• 19 trips on first class tickets costing $322,000;
• Turned down a 8-month bonus for 5 months, and then end up getting extra $66,000 in backpay and extra bonus;
• Getting extra leave backdated 7 years which was cashed in for $73,000;
• Getting $187,000 in ‘overtime’ pay between September 1997 – October 2003;
• Three insurance policies: two personal accident policies and one surgical and hospitalisation policy.

Wah piang eh! This ‘peanut’ or ‘coconut’?!

And one of my friend’s comment was: ‘Durai’s ‘good heart’ – i.e. conscience – let dog eat already’. [Translation: 杜莱的良心给狗吃了。]

是的，各位市民。他的良心已经不存在啦。[Translation: Yes, fellow citizens. His conscience is non-existent.]

And I should also add, when considering the super good treatment of Matilda Chua: 他还拿已经没有的良心来做‘好事’呢。 [Translation: He even use that already non-existent good heart to do good deeds.]

(For reference: Matilda Chua got six-month bonus of $75,000 and an ex-gratia payment of another $75,000 when she resigned. She also received an encashment of unused leave that came to $79,195. She has also received 14 months bonus previously.)

The KPMG reports seems to indicate that the checks and balances failed just like Barings. Nobody seems to have had oversight over CEO T.T. Durai and his ‘coterie of long-serving assistants’.

Not the board, not the auditors and not even the gover-min regulators.

I wondered if this would have made even Nick Leeson proud!