Is whistleblower protection necessary in Singapore?
By Darth Vader, Guest Columnist Reverend Ming Yi, the founder and former CEO of the Ren Ci Charity, is currently on trial for serious abuses of authority and mismanagement of funds. This is the latest scandal to hit the local charity sector, after the Youth Challenge scandal in 2007, and the NKF scandal in 2005. In all three instances, a capable, charismatic leader became so powerful that they became a law unto themselves, with each individual charity’s Board of Directors simply rubberstamping their decisions instead of keeping a watchful vigilance on their activities. During Rev. Ming Yi’s trial, a key witness, Mrs. Chan Ching Oi, a member of the Ren Ci Charity Hospital management committee, said that the committee members weren’t aware of how much Rev. Ming was paid. Instead, he was allowed to set his own salary and run the foundation any way he felt like. In short, the hospital management committee and the Ren Ci Charity foundation’s Board of Directors were guilty of gross derelicti
