THE TEMASEK REVIEW

Written by Our Correspondent

Since August last year, over 9,000 Buddhist devotees from Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan had signed on a petition vouching for Ming Yi’s contributions and character to plead for leniency for him.

The petitioners claimed that Ming Yi had made tremendous contributions to society.

In the aftermath of the tsunami in 2004, Ming Yi led a humanitarian mission to Sri Lanka to help the homeless and displaced people there. He took another team to Indonesia in 2006 to assist the earthquake victims.

One petitioner said:

“Whether as a Buddhist monk or a lay person, Ming Yi is a man of impeccable moral character and integrity.”

Staff of Ren Ci Hospital also spoke up in defense of Ming Yi. They praised Ming Yi for working hard to build up Ren Ci to where it is today.

According to them, Ming Yi was an understanding CEO who cared a lot about his staff. He even forked out $5,000 of his own money to help a medical staff who was diagnosed with cancer.

The prosecutors have requested Ming Yi to be jailed due to the severity of the crime. As the head of a charity organization, his misuse of its funds will erode public confidence in Singapore charities.

Ming Yi is the second charity chief to be jailed after NKF’s T.T. Durai who was found guilty for misleading NKF with a falsified invoice of $20,000 which was allegedly for interior design consultancy work done by David Tan, director of the design firm.

Durai was sentenced to three months in jail after which he went to Abu Dhabi to work as CEO of Singapore-based Property Facilities Services Pte Ltd. He was reportedly paid $25,000 a month.

Both NKF and Ren Ci are the largest charities in Singapore. They used to raise millions of dollars via annual Charity TV shows which have been discontinued.

News source: Lianhe Wanbao, 21 November 2009

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