At the centre of the inquiry by the Commisioner of Charities
(CoC) is the City Harvest Church's Crossover Project and the
misrepresentation on the use of the charity's fund.
The project was set up in 2002 purportedly to use Sun Ho's
secular music to connect with people and reach out to
non-Christians.
By 2003, it had drawn flak. According to the CoC, an individual
alleged in the media that the charity was funding Sun Ho's music
career.
This attracted public attention. Although the person eventually
issued a public apology and retracted his allegations, the church
faced media scrutiny. In response, it issued press statements and
made several representations to its members to state that they had
not funded Sun Ho's music career.
However, unknown to the executive members of the board, the
church's funds were used to run the project, said the CoC.
'Over a period of 3 years, at least $23 million was used.
However, during this period of time, the executive members were not
told of the actual purpose of the use of these funds,' the
spokesman said.
Giving an idea of how this was done, the CoC said the funds from
the church were diverted to finance the project under the guise of
donations to its affliated church in Kuala Lumpur between December
2007 and May 2010.
The church - City Harvest Church Kuala Lumpur (KL) - then
transmitted the monies to support the project in the United States
(US). During this period, at least $2.1 million was transferred
from the Singapore church to the one in KL to fund the project, the
CoC said.
It added that its inquiry revealed that pastor Kong Hee and his
deputy, Mr Tan Ye Peng, executive member Kelvin Teo Meng How,
church finance manager Tan Shao Yuen, Sharon and executive member
Serina Wee Gek Yin were aware of the true purpose of the donations
to the KL church.
Donations and tithes to the church were also transferred into a
private fund known as the multi-purpose account, administered by Ms
Wee and pastor Kong's former personal assistant, Ms Jacqueline Tan
Su Pheng.
Monies in this account were in turn used to fund the project.
The CoC said that between April 2007 and March 2010, the funds used
for purported expenditures of pastor Kong and his wife amounted to
approximately $600,000 and $3 million respectively. Selected donors
were asked to transfer their contributions originally meant for the
church's 'Arise and Build' project to the multi-purpose
account.
It added that the existence of the account was not known to the
church's members. 'There was even an attempt to conceal the
existence of this account by closing the joint bank account and
dealing only in cash transactions, which was kept in a safe at the
charity,' the spokesman said.
About three years ago, a plan was conceptualised by Mr Tan, Mr
Chew, Ms Wee and Ms Tan to divert a $600,000 donation to the
multi-purpose account. The donation which was meant to be for the
church's building fund, was diverted via a purported 'refund'.
The amount apparently went some ways to meet the financial needs
of the project - which included US$100,000 (S$128,000) to finance a
media team from Singapore to publicise and write about Sun Ho's
music career in the US.
The CoC said that between 2006 and 2008, pastor Kong's company
sold over $3 million worth of merchandise to the church, but did
not disclose his interests in these related transactions in the
church's financial statements.
In 2008, he 'refunded' royalties to the church amounting to
approximately $770,000 from the sale of his merchandise. The CoC
said this was probably motivated by concerns that the church's
auditors would require them to be disclosed.
The purported refunds were concealed as a 'sales discount' given
to the church, and later, reimbursed to pastor Kong from the
multi-purpose account and the KL church.
'(The) refund of royalties to the charity was therefore cosmetic
and he was instead never 'out of pocket',' the CoC said.
It also found evidence which suggested that certain members of
the church's board had been less than prudent in the discharge of
their duties toward the charity and its members.
-- ST
