Abstract of The Strait Time Friday, January26 2007
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It has been a dramatic week for the charity sector, with lawsuits
flying, governance probes unveiled, amendments to Charities Act and
not forgetting a police report made on Wednesday concerning an
unauthorised deduction from the coffers of one organisation.
Hopefully, giving the commissioner of charities(COC) more teeth- as
was debated in the parliament this week- will prevent more
charities from ending up like Youth Challenge and the National
Kidney Foundation(NKF), which have been in the news this wee, for
all the wrong reasons.
While punishing those who ignore the law is just, raising awareness
of how to do the accounts right may be the more enduring
lesson.
So far, the COC has been given punitive power. Among other things,
it can deregister charities, fine them, boot trustees or employees
out and restrict public fund raising.
On Youth Challenge's former management board was a director at UBS
Bank, a managing director of a company and a finance academic
attaches to the Singapore Management University. Still, its
accounts fell short of the mark.
BY Yap Su-Yin
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How about Commissioner of Ministry Of Finance?
