Letters were sent in support of old NKF. But e-mails from former PR head showed: She's behind letters from 'public'

January 10, 2007

WHEN you send a letter to newspapers, it reflects a genuine point of view, your real feelings, right?

Well, not every letter the press receives comes from readers like you.

The National Kidney Foundation (NKF), it appears, has in the past, sent 'ghost-written' letters to newspapers as well as the Feedback Unit of the Government. These were signed off by people purporting to be concerned donors and patients.

But the letters were actually initiated by NKF staff.

DECEIVING THE PUBLIC
This was revealed in the NKF trial yesterday, when lawyer K Shanmugam charged the old NKF board with deceiving the public.

He said: 'The NKF, under Durai, sought to hide information... or choose only certain types of information to disclose.'

E-mails from Ms Michelle Ang, a former reporter who was in charge of public communications at NKF, showed how it went about doing this.

For example, she marshalled staff from NKF's patient admissions and marketing communication departments to ghost-write letters to the newspapers, with the same basic point - that the public does not need to know about the salary of NKF's CEO, Mr TT Durai.

One of her e-mails, dated 29 Sep 2004, to her colleague, Mr Job Loei, included this bit.
'Then there is the issue of disclosure of salaries. I am curious to know how much my pastor earns as his pay comes from the church fund, to which I dutifully contribute each month. But I never ask him that, simply because I respect and trust him.

'He is my leader. Furthermore, he has a church council to ensure that things are done properly....'

NKF used the same line of defence when refusing to disclose Mr Durai's salary - that it answered to its board and was thus accountable.

Ms Ang also took care to make sure that the letters not only made the point NKF wanted but also sounded genuine. Her e-mails to NKF colleagues included the following nuggets of advice:

'Hi Job,' she wrote. 'Pls avoid phrases like 'everything possible', or 'everything possible and more' or 'everywhere, anywhere'.'

These were known to be among Mr Durai's favourite phrases. So the idea was to not inject any flavour of the man in these letters.

'Do not give editors or the feedback unit any ammo to say that we penned the letters. Do not establish any patterns for them, or the readers, to see.'

The NKF also left in some grammatical errors. 'Edited for points, not language. Let imperfections show,' wrote Ms Ang.

To protest against the implementation of the IPC (Institution of Public Character) Code, which would place restrictions on how charities behaved, Mr Durai arranged for letters to be ghost-written to the press, purportedly on behalf of NKF 'patients'. Ms Ang wrote: 'The letters must sound real. Not an academic exercise.'

Hence, some of the letters were heartfelt, but badly phrased: 'I simply do not understand these buzz about putting restrictions to IPCs.'

'Don't you know your recommendations will only incur more running cost to sustain our life saving program... One thing we must bring out is please... please considering our outcomes.'

All these letters were part of a propaganda effort, Mr Shanmugam argued, to mislead the public.
Some of the letters also contained false information, such as the number of patients NKF treated and the reserves NKF had.

So how were the letters generated? How did NKF get people to write in to the press? Well, wait for my next letter as NKF's Job Loei is called to the stand.