SINGAPORE: City Harvest Church had a "substantial
degree of control and influence" over the payroll and staff salaries of
production company Xtron, said Chief Prosecutor Mavis Chionh on Tuesday
(Sep 23), as she continued her cross-examination of the church's finance
manager Sharon Tan.
This was part of the prosecution's continuing bid to show that Xtron was a shell company controlled by the church to funnel church monies. Tan and five other church leaders are accused of misusing church funds, to finance the pop music career of Ms Sun Ho, the wife of founder Kong Hee.
The court was shown an email dated July 2008, in which Tan had asked co-accused Kong to confirm that staff would be given a half-month bonus and inflation component. Xtron was listed as one of the organisations included in this "scheme".
To that, Tan replied that the organisations showed "interest and indication" that they may want to follow how much the church was giving "as a guide". The prosecution argued that Tan was being "untruthful" a number of times and that her explanation was just a "convenient excuse".
For example, on Mar 23, 2009, Tan sent a message using her BlackBerry phone to one of the co-accused, Deputy Senior Pastor Tan Ye Peng. In the message, which referenced co-accused Serina Wee (then the accountant working on the Xtron cashflow), Sharon Tan wrote: "Serina said that need to find another $1million per year to extend the bonds. I suggested that CHC can give a discount in interest for those extended years. I do not see any issue in it."
The prosecution questioned Tan if she meant that Xtron needed to extend the bond repayment period, and that it needed to find another $1million to pay off the bonds. However, Tan disagreed and said the "discussion did not happen at the end of the day, so it was really another scenario-planning and budget planning".
The prosecution then put it that Tan was "being untruthful" and "trying to explain away" her statements because she realised that the message was evidence that funds flows between Xtron and the church were "treated very much as money going from one pocket to another".
In Tuesday's court session, Tan also acknowledged that "on hindsight", she should not have backdated the minutes of an investment committee meeting to 29 July 2008 when it was actually held on Aug 5.
Tan said she did so to reflect the date that one of the attendees, Koh Siow Ngea, was appointed as a director of Xtron, to avoid any "related party disclosure".
The prosecution claimed that Tan backdated the minutes because auditors had asked on Aug 1 for an assessment on Xtron's ability to repay some bonds it had issued. The church had not done the assessment until it met on Aug 5.
The prosecution said that Tan is seen as being "perfectly willing to falsify documents" that will be shown to auditors, if she thought that it was necessary to achieve a certain purpose. To that, Tan said she was "overly paranoid over the conflict of interest" and it was never her intention to defraud the auditors.
This was part of the prosecution's continuing bid to show that Xtron was a shell company controlled by the church to funnel church monies. Tan and five other church leaders are accused of misusing church funds, to finance the pop music career of Ms Sun Ho, the wife of founder Kong Hee.
The court was shown an email dated July 2008, in which Tan had asked co-accused Kong to confirm that staff would be given a half-month bonus and inflation component. Xtron was listed as one of the organisations included in this "scheme".
To that, Tan replied that the organisations showed "interest and indication" that they may want to follow how much the church was giving "as a guide". The prosecution argued that Tan was being "untruthful" a number of times and that her explanation was just a "convenient excuse".
For example, on Mar 23, 2009, Tan sent a message using her BlackBerry phone to one of the co-accused, Deputy Senior Pastor Tan Ye Peng. In the message, which referenced co-accused Serina Wee (then the accountant working on the Xtron cashflow), Sharon Tan wrote: "Serina said that need to find another $1million per year to extend the bonds. I suggested that CHC can give a discount in interest for those extended years. I do not see any issue in it."
The prosecution questioned Tan if she meant that Xtron needed to extend the bond repayment period, and that it needed to find another $1million to pay off the bonds. However, Tan disagreed and said the "discussion did not happen at the end of the day, so it was really another scenario-planning and budget planning".
The prosecution then put it that Tan was "being untruthful" and "trying to explain away" her statements because she realised that the message was evidence that funds flows between Xtron and the church were "treated very much as money going from one pocket to another".
In Tuesday's court session, Tan also acknowledged that "on hindsight", she should not have backdated the minutes of an investment committee meeting to 29 July 2008 when it was actually held on Aug 5.
Tan said she did so to reflect the date that one of the attendees, Koh Siow Ngea, was appointed as a director of Xtron, to avoid any "related party disclosure".
The prosecution claimed that Tan backdated the minutes because auditors had asked on Aug 1 for an assessment on Xtron's ability to repay some bonds it had issued. The church had not done the assessment until it met on Aug 5.
The prosecution said that Tan is seen as being "perfectly willing to falsify documents" that will be shown to auditors, if she thought that it was necessary to achieve a certain purpose. To that, Tan said she was "overly paranoid over the conflict of interest" and it was never her intention to defraud the auditors.
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