The staunching of the dirt

Surprisingly, Mr TT Durai decided to throw in the towel of public scrutiny after just 1 and a half day's of the prosecutor laying out all the dirt that was dug up in 8 months of investigative work, including computer forensics. While much of the dirt wasn't all that new (well, dirt is never new anyway), some of it having been aired during TTD's suite against SPH back in 2005, the depth of it was, I suppose, just too much for TTD to bear. Actually, I think he is smarter this time around by cutting his losses and running. He probably figured that he has better things to do than to sit down in Court and have dirt thrown at him.

That leaves his cronies to defend themselves, which may be more interesting to most since much of what we are hearing is new to many, including myself. One lesson that has already come out of this is that sitting on the Board of any organisation is a very heavy responsibility. Just look at the sheer number of lawyers representing these various (former) board members (which reads like a Who's Who in Singapore) in Court who may or may not have been responsible for the mess at the old NKF.

The next time I get invited to take a board seat, I'd think twice, no, better make that thrice.

The dirt just comes pouring out

'Goodness gracious me', as an old and dear friend of mine used to exclaim when presented with an unusual situation.

This time, the NKF is yet again in the limelight, and possibly for the next 7 weeks, for that is the time set aside by the Singapore Courts to hear the civil suite filed by the new NKF against its former Board Members, led by its former CEO, Mr T.T. Durai, to recover S$12million big ones that was allegedly misappropriated. From newspapers reports of the account of this ongoing trial, a lot of dirt, and I mean a LOT of it, is being dumped out by the prosecutors from the erstwhile closed closets of the dependents.

Strangely, I feel glad that I have never contributed a cent to the NKF. Well, that's not strictly true. My wife and son contributed once, some S$50 of my money, for two reasons - to stand a chance to win the fabulous prizes that NKF was dangling, and I suppose, for the charity as well. I am not saying that my dearly beloved ones are less charitable, but they got caught up in the prizes thing that releasing money in the name of charity became that much easier - not to mention that those money belonged to me.

Well, if what the prosecutor has said so far regarding the profligacy of the old NKF CEO is true, about him using much of the contributions on expensive hotels and airplanes and polishing some people's asses, then I am glad that my contribution towards these is minimal. But I can imagine more charitable people now sharpening their knives, ready to plunge it into - themselves - for having been such fools. And I can imagine certain well-meaning artiste who risk their lives and limps staging those charity shows so that the money raised can contribute towards somebody's hugely obscene bonuses. And I thought that TTD's family was a bunch of angels...helping to shred incriminating documents...

Well, if day one is so shocking, we should be prepared to bring out our cardiac arrestor to make sure we survive the seven weeks. No point making the supreme sacrifice for such err...cronies and crooks. (say what? innocent till proven guilty?....)