What was he doing in Disneyland?
By Leong Ching January 10, 2007
HE preached cost control and careful spending, but in reality Mr T T Durai was spending $11,600 a month for eight years on hotel bills alone.
He spent $4,800 on a single visit to Disneyland in California. And thousands more at hotels in New York, Geneva, Mumbai and Shanghai.
Senior Counsel K Shanmugam said this when touching on the former National Kidney Foundation (NKF) chief's alleged excesses in his opening statement of a civil suit yesterday.
The new NKF is trying to recover $12 million from Mr Durai, former chairman Richard Yong, former treasurer Loo Say San, former board member Matilda Chua and the absent Mr Pharis Aboobacker, an Indian national who was behind several botched NKF deals.
Mr Shanmugam told the court: 'Whenever there was any allegation that he travelled first class, Durai's approach had always been that such allegations had to be challenged.
'Otherwise... public sympathy and crucial donations vital to (NKF's) operations would diminish.'
In reality, however, there was a 'serious subversion of proper governance at all levels'.
For example, there was no proper remuneration policy, so Mr Durai's pay increases could be backdated for a year - something which Mr Shanmugam did not think was possible at a charity organisation.
The audit committee, which was supposed to have a watchdog role, did not meet for three years.
The lawyer also released a list of Mr Durai's expenses, which included $1m spent on hotels alone from 1998 to 2005.
In the six months from June to December 2004, he travelled to places such as Beijing, Shanghai, London, Dublin, Geneva, Vienna and Disneyland in California.
And he did not stint on the hotels. He stayed at ones like the Sheraton, Hyatt and MGM Grand.
Mr Shanmugam also portrayed Mr Durai as someone who pulled all the strings at the former NKF.
Behind the scenes, Mr Durai wielded so much power in the NKF that he should be considered a de facto director or shadow director, he told the court.
Beyond that, he also succeeded in misleading the NKF board and the authorities with 'smoke and mirrors'.
He even sought to mislead the public by directing NKF staff to 'ghost-write' letters to the press on such issues as his salary and management transparency. (See report on facing page.)
The lawyer took the first day of what's expected to be an eight-week trial to list Mr Durai's alleged excesses and how he tried to cover his tracks, especially after his fall from grace.
This came after his failed defamation suit against Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) in July 2005.
The packed courthouse was rivetted by Mr Shanmugam's allegation of how Mr Durai had 'sat through the night' destroying computer files and documents after NKF dropped the suit following disclosures of Mr Durai's generous pay and perks, which included first-class air travel.
Mr Shanmugam said the destroyed files were linked to Mr Durai's connections with companies run by Mr Aboobacker.
And it was clear that Mr Durai and his inner circle knew that they had something to hide.
'INNER CIRCLE'
The lawyer named the three NKF co-defendants as members of Mr Durai's 'inner circle'. He even called them 'cronies', until Judicial Commissioner Sundaresh Menon told him to stop.
The NKF's case is that the four had breached their duties as directors, using the charity to their own advantage and causing it to pay out more money than it should.
Mr Shanmugam said that Mr Durai's power was so great that he should have been subject to the responsibilities that directors have under the Companies Act.
In fact, this responsibility was more onerous, given that he was running a charity dependent on public donations.
He alleged that, as CEO, Mr Durai had put his personal interests before the charity's. ''First, Mr Durai systematically set about taking complete control by subverting all the organs of the company,' he said.
'Then, secondly, he put up a shield against all external authority, such that the company, the charitable foundation, became his sole fiefdom, and then used it for personal advantage and profit.'
He decided how much information to disclose to the NKF Exco, and was not above lying, Mr Shanmugam alleged.
One instance was when the Exco was kept in the dark about SPH's bid to settle the defamation suit instead of going to court.
It was also not told of a Queen's Counsel's advice that a trial was risky as financial management issues would form part of SPH's scrutiny.
Instead, they were told the NKF had a good case, for which Mr Durai was hoping to get $20 million in damages, an unprecedented sum in Singapore courts.
Mr Durai also fought off attempts to put the NKF under closer scrutiny and orchestrated mass campaigns to champion his stance that the NKF was transparent and accountable to the regulatory authorities.
He also set up an internal audit committee with much fanfare, but this was just so much 'smoke and mirrors', said Mr Shanmugam.
The audit committee did not meet for almost three years because Mr Durai would not back its recommendations.
HE preached cost control and careful spending, but in reality Mr T T Durai was spending $11,600 a month for eight years on hotel bills alone.
He spent $4,800 on a single visit to Disneyland in California. And thousands more at hotels in New York, Geneva, Mumbai and Shanghai.
Senior Counsel K Shanmugam said this when touching on the former National Kidney Foundation (NKF) chief's alleged excesses in his opening statement of a civil suit yesterday.
The new NKF is trying to recover $12 million from Mr Durai, former chairman Richard Yong, former treasurer Loo Say San, former board member Matilda Chua and the absent Mr Pharis Aboobacker, an Indian national who was behind several botched NKF deals.
Mr Shanmugam told the court: 'Whenever there was any allegation that he travelled first class, Durai's approach had always been that such allegations had to be challenged.
'Otherwise... public sympathy and crucial donations vital to (NKF's) operations would diminish.'
In reality, however, there was a 'serious subversion of proper governance at all levels'.
For example, there was no proper remuneration policy, so Mr Durai's pay increases could be backdated for a year - something which Mr Shanmugam did not think was possible at a charity organisation.
The audit committee, which was supposed to have a watchdog role, did not meet for three years.
The lawyer also released a list of Mr Durai's expenses, which included $1m spent on hotels alone from 1998 to 2005.
In the six months from June to December 2004, he travelled to places such as Beijing, Shanghai, London, Dublin, Geneva, Vienna and Disneyland in California.
And he did not stint on the hotels. He stayed at ones like the Sheraton, Hyatt and MGM Grand.
Mr Shanmugam also portrayed Mr Durai as someone who pulled all the strings at the former NKF.
Behind the scenes, Mr Durai wielded so much power in the NKF that he should be considered a de facto director or shadow director, he told the court.
Beyond that, he also succeeded in misleading the NKF board and the authorities with 'smoke and mirrors'.
He even sought to mislead the public by directing NKF staff to 'ghost-write' letters to the press on such issues as his salary and management transparency. (See report on facing page.)
The lawyer took the first day of what's expected to be an eight-week trial to list Mr Durai's alleged excesses and how he tried to cover his tracks, especially after his fall from grace.
This came after his failed defamation suit against Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) in July 2005.
The packed courthouse was rivetted by Mr Shanmugam's allegation of how Mr Durai had 'sat through the night' destroying computer files and documents after NKF dropped the suit following disclosures of Mr Durai's generous pay and perks, which included first-class air travel.
Mr Shanmugam said the destroyed files were linked to Mr Durai's connections with companies run by Mr Aboobacker.
And it was clear that Mr Durai and his inner circle knew that they had something to hide.
'INNER CIRCLE'
The lawyer named the three NKF co-defendants as members of Mr Durai's 'inner circle'. He even called them 'cronies', until Judicial Commissioner Sundaresh Menon told him to stop.
The NKF's case is that the four had breached their duties as directors, using the charity to their own advantage and causing it to pay out more money than it should.
Mr Shanmugam said that Mr Durai's power was so great that he should have been subject to the responsibilities that directors have under the Companies Act.
In fact, this responsibility was more onerous, given that he was running a charity dependent on public donations.
He alleged that, as CEO, Mr Durai had put his personal interests before the charity's. ''First, Mr Durai systematically set about taking complete control by subverting all the organs of the company,' he said.
'Then, secondly, he put up a shield against all external authority, such that the company, the charitable foundation, became his sole fiefdom, and then used it for personal advantage and profit.'
He decided how much information to disclose to the NKF Exco, and was not above lying, Mr Shanmugam alleged.
One instance was when the Exco was kept in the dark about SPH's bid to settle the defamation suit instead of going to court.
It was also not told of a Queen's Counsel's advice that a trial was risky as financial management issues would form part of SPH's scrutiny.
Instead, they were told the NKF had a good case, for which Mr Durai was hoping to get $20 million in damages, an unprecedented sum in Singapore courts.
Mr Durai also fought off attempts to put the NKF under closer scrutiny and orchestrated mass campaigns to champion his stance that the NKF was transparent and accountable to the regulatory authorities.
He also set up an internal audit committee with much fanfare, but this was just so much 'smoke and mirrors', said Mr Shanmugam.
The audit committee did not meet for almost three years because Mr Durai would not back its recommendations.
posted by khimsiu at 11:06 PM
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