‘Has your existence benefited anyone?’: Gerard Ee on legacy and a life of service

SINGAPORE - Gerard Ee, who has often been dubbed “Mr Fix It” for taking on some of Singapore’s thorniest public roles, has retired for the second time after a lifetime of public service.

On Aug 31, the 77-year-old stepped down as chairman of the Agency for Integrated Care (AIC) and as a board member of MOH Holdings, closing the chapter on his official commitments. 

From November, he will also relinquish chairmanship of the Changi General Hospital Health Fund while remaining on its board.

“My CV now only has one line,” quipped the former Nominated Member of Parliament.

It is a far cry from two decades ago, when his three-page resume listed over 20 board and committee appointments.

This retirement comes 21 years after his first in 2005, when the accountant left his professional life as an Ernst & Young partner. 

But instead of retreating into a quieter life, he found himself repeatedly called upon to step into the hot seat - and doing so without pay. 

Ee said he received director fees only for his roles at the AIC and at MOH Holdings. His other volunteer roles were taken out of a sense of duty to help. 

Among them were leading the National Kidney Foundation (NKF) through its biggest crisis, heading a committee to review ministerial salaries and chairing the Public Transport Council, where he had to face public scrutiny over fare hikes.

With the Singapore resident’s average life expectancy at 83.9 years, at 77, Ee is mindful about the passing of time.

In 2025, he faced an early-stage prostate cancer diagnosis and five rounds of radiotherapy.

“It was a very early stage…so it’s not frightening, not horrendous. I nipped it in time,” he said. The cancer was picked up during his regular health checks.

 “It (the cancer) is gone already, so I don’t think about it anymore.”

His pragmatic manner, coupled with a healthy sense of humor, extends to his philosophy on ageing.

“Accept that you are ageing, accept that there is an expiry date,” he said. “Do what is necessary to prepare for it so that no one would suffer because of your demise. So make sure you have done your planning, have your will done and your family is cared for.”

Ee has two children in their 30s with his home-maker wife. His son is a property agent and his daughter is involved in supply chain work.

He also draws support from a group of friends from his alma mater St Joseph’s Institution, whom he meets regularly.

Of the 10 of them, seven has some prostrate problem, he said. 

Prostate cancer was nothing like his battle with Stage 3 colon cancer about 20 years ago. Then, a tennis-ball-sized tumour came with a sobering 40% five-year survival rate.

The illness was compounded by the stress of managing an unexpected public crisis.

Just 13 days into his 2005 retirement, then-Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan tasked Ee with restoring confidence in the NKF after CEO T.T. Durai and his board resigned amid public outrage.

Durai had sued Singapore Press Holdings over a Straits Times report that he had a gold-plated tap in his office toilet. He withdrew his defamation suit after his lavish salary and perks, questionable use of donations and other damaging details were made public during the trial.

Ee inherited a full-blown crisis: nearly 50,000 donors cancelled their regular donations in a week, the NKF headquarters was vandalised, and anxiety gripped staff and patients.

Overwhelmed on day one, the devout Catholic spent an hour praying in his office.

“I had no idea what to do or what to start with,” Ee recalls. “I never prayed so hard in my life.”

In the months that followed, he steadied the charity by commissioning an independent public audit of its work and set up proper financial controls and other governance measures.

He had to make tough calls, including retrenching over 100 staff, who were mostly in fund-raising, after the charity stopped actively fund-raising for several years. 

During his seven years at the helm, he stabilised NKF’s operations and expanded its services to more patients and improved patient care. 

Yet the strain of leading a charity under intense scrutiny took a physical toll.

For example, the skin on his hand began to bleed, which he attributed to stress.

Another high-profile assignment followed when he headed the committee to review ministerial salaries. The public interest in the matter brought renewed pressure, and his hand bled again.  

The committee recommended significant pay cuts after pegging the ministerial pay to a much wider pool of top earners here, and factored in a 40 per cent discount off the market benchmark to reflect the ethos of political service. The Government accepted its recommendations in 2012.

“I can only be myself, for better or for worse”

Ee’s introduction to volunteering came early. As a boy, he was exposed to charity work by his father, the late Ee Peng Liang affectionately known as Singapore’s “father of charity” and founder of the Community Chest.

But it was only in his late 20s, while helping his father with the logistics of a TV fund-raiser where he met many persons with disabilities. That left a lasting impression that sparked his life of service.

He said: “It was the first time I felt touched. Like in spite of their condition, they are so cheerful and positive and it was then that I felt the tug to want to do something more.”

Over the next few decades, Ee championed causes such as accessibility for persons with disabilities, youth rehabilitation and active ageing.

The long list of organisations he chaired include the National Council of Social Service, the Charity Council, the Council for Third Age, Automobile Association of Singapore and the Eastern Health Alliance. 

For Ee, success has always been measured in human outcomes.

“I very much believe that when you do good, you must focus on the outcomes and not output. And the easiest way to measure outcomes is the answer to the question: how have peoples’ lives improved because of what you have done to help?”

Ee, the youngest of five children, said he never felt burdened to live up to his father’s reputation. This is even though some people who had once sought his father’s help turned to him after his father’s death. 

“I would do my best, but I should not try to imitate my father because I can only be a poor imitation. I can only be myself, for better or for worse,” he said.

In his second retirement, Ee intends to keep sharing his experience with younger people and share insights on ageing and other topics on social media. 

Asked what he hoped his legacy would be, he returned to the lesson from his father.

“That my existence has benefitted people. He said at the end of the day, the most important answer is whether your existence has benefitted anyone or not.”

Then, with a chuckle, he added: “And he went on to say even a dog has given much love and happiness to its owner.”