Management committee trusted monk to set what is 'fair' and knew little of his salary, says witness
By
Carolyn Quek
Ming Yi, whose real name is Goh Kah Heng, faces 10 charges. The 47-year-old is accused of forgery, lying to the Commissioner of Charities (COC) and misappropriating $350,000, among other things. --ST PHOTO: ALBERT SIM
THE management committee of one of Singapore's largest charities did not know how much they were paying their chief executive.
They could have asked, admitted Ren Ci Hospital's committee member Chan Ching Oi, but they did not.
About the case
FORMER Ren Ci Hospital chief Ming Yi faces 10 charges in all but only four are the subject of this current trial.
Two are joint charges with his former personal assistant, Raymond Yeung, 34.
Instead, they let its CEO and founder Ming Yi decide on what he deemed to be a 'fair' salary, Mrs Chan said on the witness stand on Tuesday, while testifying on the third day of a criminal trial against the Buddhist monk.
This revelation of how little Ren Ci's management knew of its CEO's salary came up after Deputy Public Prosecutor David Chew quizzed Mrs Chan, 70, about a sudden jump in Ming Yi's salary in 2001 - from $16,000 in May to $20,700 in June.
Mrs Chan, who has been Ren Ci's honorary secretary since it started in 1994, admitted she did not know how much Ming Yi's salary was and that the management did not pry into it.
When questioned later by Ming Yi's lawyer, Senior Counsel Andre Yeap, Mrs Chan said the committee trusted Ming Yi would give himself a reasonable salary, pegged to that of other hospital CEOs and also based on the scope of work undertaken by him for the hospital.
She agreed with Mr Yeap's point that Ming Yi sometimes donated part of his salary to the Foo Hai Ch'an monastery, where he was the abbot.
She also agreed that the committee could have asked how much Ming Yi was paid at any point in time. 'But we would not ask because we knew that he would not overcharge the hospital,' she said.
Mr Yeap also said Ming Yi had stopped drawing a salary from Ren Ci since sometime in 2005 until he was suspended from office in July last year, soon after he was arrested.
Mrs Chan also said that when Ren Ci was set up in 1994, its financial position 'was challenging' and it would not have been able to take off without a critical $310,000 loan Ming Yi gave to the hospital then. Eight years later, he made another $300,000 loan to the hospital. Mrs Chan also agreed to Mr Yeap's point that the loans were interest-free.
Read the full story in Tuesday's edition of The Straits Times.
