After more than 2 years, there’s finally an outcome to the City Harvest Church investigations conducted by the Commissioner of Charities [COC] and the Commercial Affairs Department [CAD]. According to the press release on the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports [MCYS] website:
“Financial irregularities of at least $23 million from the Charity’s funds have been discovered. These funds were used with the purported intention to finance Ho Yeow Sun’s secular music career to connect with people. There was a concerted effort to conceal this movement of funds from its stakeholders.“. (emphasis mine)
The diagram on the right is a graphical representation of irregularities discovered during the investigations. Five individuals will be charged in court, namely:
From what I have gathered, the charges against the five include criminal breach of trust, and falsification of accounts. However, it will only be after the hearing that we will know what each of the five will be charged with. The media reports that criminal breach of trust offences carry a maximum penalty of life imprisonment and fine, while each falsification of accounts offence carries jail for up to 10 years, or a fine, or both.
On top of this, the COC has suspended the above and three other individuals from the exercise of their office or employment as governing board members, officers, agents or employees of City Harvest Church with immediate effect. They are:
Regardless whether the charges have merit or not, the diagram here indicates that some form of “layering” has been attempted to camouflage the ultimate destination of those funds. (That is in contrast to money laundering where the “layering” is done to conceal the source of the funds.)
The funds are first moved to City Harvest Church Kuala Lumpur before being moved into the “Crossover Project”. Only after that are they used to fund Ho Yeow Sun’s secular singing career. Remember, this is her secular singing career. Even if one wants to argue that this was part of her “ministry” to allow her to reach out to non-Christians, one has to take a look at the songs that she has been singing. Take for example China Wine, and Lady Saw. Just look up those song names up on Youtube along with the keyword “Sun Ho”. Take a look at the music videos and try and fathom how these songs reach out to non-Christians and tell them about the Gospel and the Salvation that comes through Christ Jesus. Furthermore, if I am not wrong, Ho Yeow Sun (aka Sun Ho) resigned as a pastoral member of the church so which pastor is overseeing this “ministry”?
As to the donations from Wahju Hanafi, there were also allegations of document forgeries and also attempts to mask the ultimate destination of the funds using a “multi-purpose account”. All of these seem rather elaborate. In my personal opinion it demonstrates planning and conspiracy and clearly not a procedural oversight. However, it is up to the judge to decide whether there is any wrong being done here regardless of my personal opinion.
As for the remaining irregularities were more straight forward. Refunding the church of S$770,000 to avoid disclosing related party transactions and then getting reimbursed that same amount from the “multi-purpose account” is as far as I am concerned a blatant attempt of siphoning money from the church and to deceive the congregation into believing that everything is above board. It’s like putting the cookies back into the cookie jar to avoid the accusation of theft, only that there’s this little trap door below where the cookies goes right back into a bag in the pants.
Last but not least, is the refunding of S$338,000 to Chew Eng Han because he was facing financial difficulties. Where is Chew’s faith in what Kong Hee preaches? Maybe his rewards would have been 10 times, 100 times or even a 1000 times if he didn’t take that refund! This is rather interesting because I am interested to know whether the same privilege is accorded to all church members who are in similar financial straits. If not, this clearly smacks of cronyism, collusion and nepotism. So much for giving until it hurts.
Now, I would be exceptionally interested to see how the accused explain themselves in court even though being indicted does not necessarily constitute guilt. If it is indeed a concerted effort to conceal the movement of S$23-million, then the members of the church should ponder upon whether this is a matter of religious persecution as some of them has so frequently write on forums and wall comments to defend their precious, beloved pastors. Many of them who defended the accused also called this a trial and tribulation. To me, that is utterly preposterous considering the seriousness and the amount of accusation leveled against them. Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone even managed to concoct a Biblical comparison here to justify this.
Before I end, let me point out that God gave us a sound logical mind to reason and to rein in our emotions. God certainly also gave His followers a discerning spirit. My personal opinion is that the actions of these individuals are nothing more than personal misdemeanor and they have completely no religious context at all. We are considered sheep to God, but we only look up to Jesus as our shepherd. Followers should not allow others to treat them like sheep to be led to the slaughter.
After all, as my brother-in-Christ Terence reminded me, it is written in 2 Peter 2:3 (NIV):
“In their greed these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping.”
Update: It was further reported that the accused allegedly misappropriated a further S$26.6 million from the church’s funds. This is related to a series of transactions that some of the accused created to clear the purported bond investments off the church’s accounts.
So does that mean it’s a total of S$49.6 million in all? Even Durai’s S$660,000 peanut and golden tap pales by comparison!
Recommended Reads:
In His Blood: How not to get drunk on China Wine
A Reformed Wretch: A Response to the Kong Hee Incident
Lets hope that the real truth emerges soon and that the people involved will get what they deserve.
How many people’s faiths have these people shattered…
Well, I’ll leave it to the judge on the judgment. I’ll pray for the judge to have wisdom.
We can only guessed that Durai’s kid glove’s treatment is very much like Woffles’. Every driver who has ever received a speeding summon knows that the vehicle’s owner is asked to furnish the driver’s particulars. Yet the AGC charge Woffles for abettment saying he was not the person furnishing false particulars.
The prosecutor has full discretion on what and when and how to charge without having to explain to anyone for its decisions.
I have run a company before and technically, if the company is the owner of the vehicle, then the “directors” are the legally responsible. I have received several summons, one of which my partner went to court for to stand trial because he felt the fine was unjustified. The other, I passed to the driver (who drove the vehicle home for the weekend) because we didn’t use it at that time. In any case, no one checked / verified whether our driver was really the one. In other words, I could ask the driver to take the rap and if the driver goes on his own accord to pay the fine – I did not furnish false particulars.