CHC $13m bond purchase 'made no
sense'
External auditor
Sim Guan Seng yestersday said he was concerned when City Harvest
Church (CHC) bought a $13 million bond from Xtron
Productions.
That purchase was later amended and raised to $25 million.
The managing partner of Baker Tilly said he had
questioned the purchase of bond from Xtron, which used to manage
pop singer Sun Ho, the wife of CHC founder Kong Hee.
He also said the arrangement, in which Xtron used
the bond money to buy a Riverwalk property and lease it to the
church "didn't make sense to me".
When asked by Deputy Public Prosecutor Christopher
Ong why he had concerns about the purchase's commerical rational,
Mr Sim said buying the property directly would have saved the
church in legal fees and made things clearer from the audit
view.
But church board members told him that religious
organisations could not buy commercial property, so he asked them
to seek legal advice to confirm.
Mr Sim also said that the client-auditor
relationship must be transparent.
E-mail exchanges showed Xtron's out-sourced accountant
Serina Wee discussing with church people matters that did not
concern them.
Kong's No.2, Tan Ye Peng, also asked her to arrange
for "off-the-record meeting" with Baker Tilly's then managing
partner Foong Daw Ching.
It seemed they did not want the auditors to know
certain things or show a link. Said Mr Sim: "It means they are
trying to hide something."
Kong and five deputies are accused of misusing more
than $50 million of church money through sham bonds to further Ms
Ho's singing career and covering it up.
- Koh Hui Theng
News, The New Paper, Tuesday, January 21 2014, Pg 4
