City Harvest trial: Church gives direction to Xtron, says Wahju (ST, 3 Sept 2013)

An Indonesian businessman who helped finance pastor-singer Ho Yeow Sun's music career said City Harvest Church leaders provided the "vision" for a firm accused of helping them to misuse church funds.

Mr Wahju Hanafi was the director of production company Xtron Productions, which managed Ms Ho from 2003 to 2008. He said in court of Xtron: "The vision comes from the church... They might tell us, what is their plan, when is the next concert (for Ms Ho), and then we see if we have enough finances to do what they want to do. Xtron is basically just like a financier."

However, he said he and his fellow Xtron directors made decisions on the firm's matters such as staff employment, even if various church members were shown in emails and minutes of meetings discussing such decisions without him.

"They can plan behind my back but the decision will still come down to me and (fellow director Choong) Kar Weng," he said when shown minutes of a meeting at which several of the accused church leaders discussed - in his absence - who should manage Xtron.

The State has been trying to show that Xtron was nothing more than a puppet for six church leaders accused of misuse of church funds. City Harvest founder Kong Hee and five of his deputies were charged last year with misappropriating about $50 million to finance the career of Ms Ho - who is Kong's wife - and to cover this up. They allegedly used Xtron and another company to do this.