Auditor's 'only serious problem was delay of Ho Yeow Sun's album launch' (ST: 16 Jan 2014)

AUDITOR Tiang Yii had only one serious problem with the accounts of City Harvest Church and Xtron Productions when she was auditing their financials.

It had to do with the delay of the launch of Ms Ho Yeow Sun's English-language album, which was meant to make her a big name in the United States.

Xtron, which was managing Ms Ho at the time, had borrowed money from the church by issuing bonds which the church bought. The album delay could jeopardise its ability to return the money, said Ms Tiang in court yesterday.

She said she eventually signed off on the firm's audit after it revised its contract with the church's fund manager to return the funds at a later date.

But she also put a note in the report that the review was based on the assumption that the firm's directors and creditors would continue to provide financial support.

She did, however, agree when questioned by defence lawyers yesterday, that based on her reading of the church's constitution, she did not think buying Xtron bonds with the church's building funds to pay for Ms Ho's pop music foray was illegal.

Prosecutors believe the bonds were shams and the building funds misused by church founder Kong Hee, Ms Ho's husband, and five of his deputies.

Defence lawyer Edwin Tong, who is representing Kong, put it to Ms Tiang: "As far as you know, there is no information you received either during the time you did the audit field work, or subsequently, that the Xtron bonds were fraudulent or shams or unauthorised or in some manner affected the true and fair value of the accounts."

She agreed with this, but noted that her colleague Sim Guan Seng was responsible for auditing City Harvest for the period when it bought the bonds.

Ms Tiang led the audit of Xtron for the period January to December 2007. The bond agreement was signed between Xtron and the church's fund manager AMAC Capital Partners in August that year. Her audit of City Harvest was for the period January 2006 to June 2007, shortly before the agreement was signed.

Mr Sim, who took over, had repeatedly raised concerns about the church monies going to Xtron, but the prosecution and defence lawyers disagreed about the nature of the concerns in a previous tranche of the trial. He is an upcoming witness for the prosecution.

Ms Tiang is expected to finish her time on the stand today. The next witness is church trustee Tan Yew Meng, followed by Mr Sim.