Apparently, and quite evidently, Ren Ci had flouted the guidelines on 3 aspects:

• lack of approval from board of directors on loan applications
• conflict of interests for vested interest in business
• record discrepancies

One of the main guidelines is that a board member should not be involved in discussions regarding the external business that the party has interest in; and what had been done thus far is not in the best interest of the charity.

REN CI Hospital and Medicare Centre, now under probe for financial irregularities, had contravened certain guidelines on how charities should be run when it gave out interest-free loans.

For example, under the new Code of Governance for charities and Institutions of a Public Character (IPC), it was required to obtain board approval for any loans made by the charity, said Mrs Fang Ai Lian, chairman of the Charity Council, on Monday.

Mrs Fang told the media at the launch of the Code: ‘What was done was not something in the best interest of the charity.’

Besides, there was a conflict of interest in Ren Ci’s case as its honorary chief executive, Venerable Ming Yi, is one of the owners of a business that Ren Ci lent money to, she pointed out.

The Health Ministry is now probing Ren Ci, one of Singapore’s largest charities, after it discovered that it has given out millions of dollars in interest-free loans to various companies. Some of these loans were made, apparently, without board approval.

Also, there were discrepancies between what the charity recorded it had lent and what the companies involved recorded it had borrowed.

Under the new Code, there should be procedures to handle conflict of interest situations, for example, when a board member has vested interest in businesses the charity deals with.

One guideline is that the board member should not vote on the matter or take part in discussions regarding the business.

Article obtained from straitstimes.com on 26th November 2007

Hmm… at first, it seemed like the owner removed the entries and comments. Now, it seemed like he removed all the comments and reinstated the “Why the anger?” entry. Perhaps he was advised not to pull down the entry because it would seem to be an admission of guilt.

Actually, I have not received any emails from him. Why should I? You might ask. The reason is simple. By now, he’d have found out that most of his traffic came from my blog, the straits times, or the malaysian blogs (amongst other places). However, someone already pointed out my blog to him in his comments, so the owner should know that all the big brouhaha originated from this blog.

Now, if I were him and if I were really wronged, guess what I’d do? I’d email the originated and threaten to sue him till his pants drop! That is, of course, if I am wronged. Then again, the blog owner may not want to get into a lot of legal problems - but how about emailing the originator and clarifying the matter?

Nope. No such emails either. Sigh. Hey, it’s not that I am not being open. I’m still waiting for his email to tell me that I’ve wronged him.

Hmmm…

I think it’s about time this came about - and I stand by this point be it from the donor perspective or organization perspective. I like to be bounded by rules and regulations. I like to follow convention and I have no entrepreneurship. Serious! Just look at me? What am I? I’m just a life science research student, who happens to like programming and doing web design, who happens to like to compose music in my free time, who happens to do music videos just for the hack of it, who happens to be really distracted. Me? An entrepreneur? Nay…

THE Charity Council has launched a new code of governance for charities and Institutions of Public Character (IPCs) to serve as an industry benchmark in governance standards.

The launch comes after extensive consultation with the public and charity sector, which has seen the code tweaked since a draft version was released earlier this June.

The amendments were made based on feedback from 977 individuals from more than 700 charities and IPCs, as well as 200 written responses from individuals and organisations between June and August this year.

The Code
The voluntary code will affect about 1,900 charities here, and covers nine key areas, including board governance, conflict of interest, financial management, human resource policies, and fund-raising.

One key recommendation is that a charity’s board be ‘wholly’ independent’ from its executive management.

However, recognising that some charities may find it necessary to keep paid staff on the board, the code will allow it as long as they comprise not more than one-third of the board.

While the Council has recommended that board members should not be paid a salary, it said those that do must declare their exact salary and remuneration package.

To better safeguard the charities financial interest, board members holding the treasurer’s post should step down from the position after serving a maximum of four consecutive years.

The code is also ‘tiered’ such that IPCs and bigger charities will have more stringent guidelines, as they handle larger amounts of charitable resources for the public benefit.

Working on the principle of ‘comply or explain’, charities and IPCs unable to adhere to certain code guidelines will have to explain their non-compliance.

Charities and IPCs must submit a code evaluation checklist to the appropriate sector administrators via the Charity Portal by March 31 next year. All IPCs are to publicly disclose their extent of compliance by March 31, 2009.

The extent of their compliance will affect their application for renewal of its IPC status.

Article obtained from straitstimes.com on 26th November 2007

Please help to keep the music alive. This is not just any other piece of music, but a solo from Reuben Kee - one of the 5 paddlers who was unfortunately claimed by the Dragon Boat tragedy. He is a talent. All of them were!

How I wished he could really be back home.

Do help to keep this music alive by cross-posting (copy paste) this entry on your blog if you own one. For more information, please go to http://plaktoz.blogspot.com/. Thank you

My condolences goes out to the 5 paddlers who drowned after the race in Cambodia. This isn’t another of those “I-don’t-know-them-so-I-won’t-care-less” kind of situation because (i) they were friends of my friend and (ii) this was an accident that could potentially have been avoided.

I won’t like to talk about things on hindsight because it is usually very sad when I have to do that. The natural question would have been on why the use of life jackets was abandoned. However, I can almost put myself in the shoes because there is a chance that I would have done the same. I won’t call it peer pressure, but rather, if you were from a dragon boat team, you would understand the cohesiveness (and perhaps, to a certain extend, the competitiveness to win) of a team. When something is decided upon, the whole team stands with it.

For this team spirit, I applaud them. No, I don’t mean that abandoning the life jacket was a good idea, but I applaud them for their unity. It’s sad that this had to happen, and from a governance point of view, investigations would probably have to do into why this was not discovered earlier. But hey, if you were ever in competitive sports like this, where donning of life jackets are not compulsory, then it really depends on the team to make a decision call.

While I stand by their decision, I mourn for them at the same time. To them, thank you for fighting to do the nation proud. We will remember you.