THE National Kidney Foundation's chief T.T. Durai maintained yesterday morning that Singapore Press Holdings had an agenda against it.

In the afternoon, he withdrew the allegation, after conceding that The Straits Times was merely discharging its duty to the public in reporting controversies surrounding the NKF during April last year.

To Mr Davinder Singh's question on what the agenda was, Mr Durai said: 'NKF has been a strong supporter of MediaCorp, working with MediaCorp. SPH has its own TV station, MediaWorks. And they probably have strong reservations about with whom we work.'

He added that SPH 'feels they are the regulating body on matters of how charities are run. They believe that they have strong views on how charities should be run. I believe they want to be the fourth estate, they are the determinants of public interest, determinants of transparency'.

Mr Singh asked why Mr Durai had made no mention of an agenda until now. Part of his case against SPH is that there was malice involved.

If SPH had an agenda against NKF's close working relationship with MediaCorp, this could amount to malice, said Mr Singh.

If Mr Durai genuinely believed there was an agenda and could prove it, it would make his case of malice much more powerful.

Mr Durai said he did not see the need to put this in, as his counsel had advised him to 'choose an alternative way' to plead his case.

Mr Singh then asked: 'Isn't it correct, sir, that this assertion of an agenda is another afterthought?'

When Mr Durai denied it was an afterthought, Mr Singh suggested it could be a sign of NKF's 'persecution complex', which Ms Susan Long had referred to in her article.

Mr Durai said he disagreed with her view but was aware that some people at NKF believed they were under attack.

Mr Singh suggested Mr Durai's belief in an agenda was nothing more than a figment of 'this overblown imaginary persecution complex'.

Mr Durai disagreed. 'If you read the article which came out in the papers last year in April, you will find that there was a tremendous assault on the reputation of the NKF,' he said.

He was referring to a series of unrelated articles in The Straits Times. One was on an arrangement the NKF had with insurer Aviva, where it would, for a fee, mail Aviva's publicity material to people on its considerable database.

Another dealt with NKF's reserves of $189 million.

Mr Singh reminded Mr Durai that NKF sent an e-mail message to The Straits Times at the time, praising it for its balanced coverage on Aviva. Mr Durai replied that the message had been written by his colleagues in the public relations department, to a 'dominant newspaper'.

He said: 'We are at the mercy of the newspapers. We try our best to see whether we can work with them.'

Later that afternoon, Mr Durai withdrew his allegation that SPH had an agenda against him or the NKF.

He agreed with Mr Singh that SPH had not manufactured the controversies surrounding the stories on Aviva and the reserves.