SINGAPORE — News of former Ren Ci Hospital Chief Executive Ming Yi being hauled to court in July 2008 so troubled the board of City Harvest Church that it held an urgent meeting, and two of the church leaders now facing criminal charges actively sought out auditor Foong Daw Ching for advice.
This emerged in the trial of five City Harvest leaders and a former leader yesterday as the defence tried to show the accused had laid bare the church’s relationship with, and bond investment in, Xtron Productions to Mr Foong of audit firm Baker Tilly. Xtron is an audio-visual services company that also managed the career — also known as the Crossover Project — of church co-founder Kong Hee’s wife, Ms Ho Yeow Sun, from 2003 to 2008.
In a July 19, 2008, BlackBerry message produced in court by accused Tan Ye Peng’s lawyer, Senior Counsel N Sreenivasan, Kong had written: “My church board is very troubled by the recent case with the Renci monk, who was arrested for fraud, corruption and forgery. The board members are having an urgent board meeting this afternoon to discuss how Ernst & Young has implicated Renci.”
The message was addressed to “Brother Foong” but sent to Tan and another individual called “Jacq”. Kong said Tan and another accused, Serina Wee Gek Yin, wanted to meet the auditor as they were “very troubled over two areas in our corporate governance and accounting”.
In the face of multiple emails presented by Mr Sreenivasan yesterday, Mr Foong conceded that he met some of the accused on July 21, Aug 1 and sometime around Aug 12 in 2008.
In the lead-up to the July 2008 meeting, Wee and Tan had sent Mr Foong the bond service agreement with Xtron and a document detailing the church’s relationship with its fund manager, AMAC Capital Partners, and Xtron. The second document included questions such as whether the church would have to write down the bonds — purchased in August 2007 — if Xtron was unable to redeem them on maturity, and whether the transactions were legal.
Mr Foong acknowledged he advised the church on investing its building fund in bonds, but could not recall exactly when the bond discussions took place, and insisted the name “Xtron” did not come up. He had previously testified that he gave general advice and was not the partner in charge of the church’s accounts.
Mr Sreenivasan argued that Tan — who is facing 10 charges of criminal breach of trust and falsification of accounts — acted in good faith on the advice of Mr Foong and lawyers as early as 2008, to ensure transactions at the heart of the trial were done properly.
The prosecution contends the Xtron bonds were a sham and that the accused misappropriated S$24 million of church building funds to fund Ms Ho’s music career.
But Mr Foong had apparently felt the bonds not to be a sham, Mr Sreenivasan revealed in his cross-examination yesterday. They were, at most, “junk bonds” — or high-yield, non-investment grade bonds — Mr Foong had reportedly opined when Tan and another accused, John Lam Leng Hung, went to his office on Dec 28 last year, after the six had been charged.
Asked about this, Mr Foong said the opinion was based on audits of the church and Xtron.
The defence continues to cross-examine Mr Foong today.
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