28 Jan 2015 – Eng Han EIC (AM Session) (MrsLightnFriends: 29 Jan 2015)

Today (28 Jan 15) is day 3 of Mr. Chew Eng Han on the stand. He told the judge that he should be able to finish his evidence-in-chief by tomorrow. The cross-examination by the defence counsel may start either on Friday or late Thursday afternoon on the assumption that Mr. Chew finishes somewhere in the afternoon.

On 28 January 2015, Mr. Chew gave his evidences according to the following topics:
1. Increasing Xtron retainer or income to replace dependence on album sales. (AM session)
2. Eng Han spiritual experience and history in CHC (AM Session)
3. Eng Han own state of mind, on what he thought about the bonds, the crossover and the albums as an investment (AM Session)
4. Disclosure to board, auditors, EMs and public (AM Session)
5. Charlie Lay Incidents (PM session)
6. Kong Hee and Tan Ye Peng want discreet crossover; Eng Han prefers open
7. Motivation and initiation of bond redemption (PM session)
8. SOF Redemption (PM session)

Topic – Increasing retainer or income to replace dependence on album sales

I understand that the prosecution has touched on this area quite extensively, and for the sheer fact that, as far as I believe, the act per seof increasing retainer income for Xtron from CHC, to me it’s not a dishonest act as long as it’s approved by the board. All of these increases that CHC has to pay to Xtron has to go through the board. I was once on the board as well. But what to me is important is the intention behind the variations in the income that CHC is paying to Xtron, and what were their motivations for doing that. Because therein lies the clue as to whether each individual really expected album sales to come in.

I’m going to show as well that, in all these emails, I was not involved.

Exhibit 1 – Email between Serina and Tan Ye Peng
In this email they are discussing about Xtron cashflow. Very often, the discussion about increasing retainer has to do with Xtron cashflow problems. This happened even before the bonds were issued.

Exhibit 2 – The minutes of the board meeting of CHC on 15 Feb 2007

Point 3 of the minutes
Suraj informed the board that there were additional services, which CHC required Xtron Productions Pte Ltd to provide in 2007 for audio lighting, media and management services.

Chew said, “And, again, there is nothing wrong with this because, as long as they set a rate that is reasonable compared to the market, there’s no dishonesty or impropriety. “

Point 4 of the minutes
The Board discussed about the status of the cross-over project of Ms Sun Ho Yeow Sun. The Board expressed their continual support of the cross-over project and commended Sun for being willing to make great sacrifices in order to accomplish the will of God for her life. The Board agreed to continually hold Sun and her work in prayers and to do whatever is necessary to show our support to her as what she is doing is a very practical example of engaging Christ in culture.

Chew said, “Your Honour, this is off the main topic, but I thought this was important. Back then, even before the bonds were issued, the board was for the Crossover, full support, and they believed that they should give continual support because Sun was making a great sacrifice for God, and that she is doing a great work, a practical example of engaging Christ in culture.
……….
Whether it is direct funding or indirect funding, this is what point number 4 means. Implicit in this point, your Honour, is the fact that the church board would always support the Crossover, no matter whether it’s Xtron or Firna bond, it would support.”

Exhibit 3 – Email between Serina Wee and Tan Ye Peng Subject “Confidential”
Timeline: 31 January 2008, when most of the Xtron bonds had been drawn down.

TYP wrote:
2. If we sell 300k cd only, how are we going to get out of the situation for US project
…..
6. Who are the staffs we can cut from XPL without affecting the retainer?
8. Can we have the retainer between XPL and CHC (in terms of what XPL is doing for CHC) so I can see that the services the XPL will do for CHC is unaffected.Factored in Xtron cashflow, retainer of $140K a month only from Jan 08 onwards, took out Adrian, Jaslyn and Alicia’s salaries.

Chew said, “The conversation doesn’t include me; it’s between Tan Ye Peng and Serina Wee.”

Exhibit 4 – Tan Ye Peng wrote to Kong Hee
Timeline: 15 February 2008, just after the Xtron bonds had been drawn down, almost fully.

TYP wrote:
Dear Pastor:
Sorry to get back to you so late. I have been working on this the last 2 days to find a way of not depending on CD sales to breakeven and repay the bonds.
….
So that leaves us with $6m to raise…… profit for XPL is $1.5m per year

Wahju gives $1m every year.

Chew said, “So here again, you have a discussion between two of them. That what if CD sales don’t come in, how are the bonds going to be redeemed? And they assume, again, 300,000 units being sold. In the end, they talk about property project, which I was working on, and how Xtron would earn some consultancy fees for doing the sound, the light and the visual, and the acoustics for the new building. It talks about some advance rental as well. ….So they work out a solution basically that Xtron needs to earn income every year, … and hopefully Wahju can give $1m every year and they will make up for the losses, if there are losses on the album.
The planning again does not include me, but it is between Kong Hee and Tan Ye Peng.”

Exhibit 4 – Email between Serina Wee, Kong Hee and Tan Ye Peng
Another email of planning to get extra income for Xtron for special events each year, such as Asia Conference, Christmas, Easter, for weekday Bible studies as well.

Chew said, “So here you have a scene where Serina Wee and Kong Hee are discussing is can there be more other events that Xtron can do for CHC and earn more income?”

Exhibit 5 – Email from Serina Wee wrote to Kong Hee
Timeline: 16 July 2008.

Serina wrote:
If consider only 1 album (launched in 2009)
1. By end 2010, Xtron will have a profit of $3.6m for album 1 and a cash flow surplus of $0.2m ($0.3m) after redeeming the bonds & loans
2. Xtron will be able to repay the $16m bonds by end 2010
3. Dr Kong has already made provision to set aside $2m CHC general fund to give to Xtron via some projects.

Chew: “So, again, they are planning what if the sales don’t come in as expected, how are the bonds going to be repaid. And Dr Kong has already made a decision: provide $2m from CHC justified to give to Xtron for projects. And basically, these are the extra events, or maybe some mission trips that Kong Hee would make and take some Xtron staff along with him (General Fund). Again I’m not in this email, not involved in these discussions.”

Exhibit 6 – Email from Jacq Tan (wife of Tan Ye Peng) to Serina Wee
Timeline: 7 October 2008
<…. Eng Han read the email content….>

Chew: “So here, again, they have some plans to increase the retainer for Xtron.”

Exhibit 7 – Email from Sharon Tan to Kong Hee, Tan Ye Peng, Reverend Derek Dunn
Timeline: 23 March 2009
<…. Eng Han read the email content….>

Chew: “Here again you have Pastor Kong, Tan Ye Peng and Serina Wee planning for retainer income to be either lowered for a short term and then increased later on.”

Exhibit 8 – Email from Serina Wee to Sharon Tan and Kong Hee
Timeline: 18 July 2009, lost the first attempt to buy Suntec (Palm Oil)

Serina Wrote:
Hi Pastor,
If CHC gives Xtron rental deposits/advance rental of $51.5m $30m will be used for the capital injection for Palm Oil, remaining $21.5m will be used to redeem CHC bonds.

Then basically Xtron only needs to charge CHC $100,000 retainer over the next 2 years (or as long as you require) to cover it’s operational costs. Can remove all budgets for events, like as if Xtron is doing for free.

Please note that CHC should try to help Xtron earn the $13m used for crossover over the next few years, as we also have to eventually clear this liability. The number of years we want to take to do this is up to us.

Chew: “So there’s discretion and there’s plans to adjust the retainer, depending on whether the property deal comes in or not. Then she goes on to say can remove all budgets for events like as if Xtron is doing for free. There’s an implication that they have some discretion there….”

Exhibit 9 E-507 – There are many pages in this email exhibit.

Chew: “Your Honour, I’m bringing up this exhibit because the public prosecutor on 29 September 2014, implicated myself for being involved in this scheme to try to increase income for Xtron so that the bonds can be repaid.”

Chew went on to read the relevant section of this email that the DPP pulled his name to say that he had been planning with the others to increase XPL retainer, service income from extra events, even either to increase Palm oil rental so that they could cover all the bonds that needed to be repaid.

Need to cover the following amounts
XPL Bonds
Firna bonds (+future $6m)
…
…
How to cover over 10 years?
Increase XPL retainer by $2m from Nov 2010 onwards
Increase events cost by $1m from Nov 2009 onwards
From CHC Building Fund:
Increase in Palm Oil Rental
Pastor, in order to justify for the amount that I pay XPL for its services, it cannot be too high. I feel that the most we can pay them is another $3.3m as show above.
Therefore, in order to cover for the remaining sum, we have to increase XPL profits from the Palm Oil rental by another $2m.

Chew: “…. your Honour, if you turn to page 3 rather page 2 which is the beginning of this email, on page 2 the email really between Sharon Tan and Tan Ye Peng on 23 November 2009, 12:07pm. By this time this was discussed, I had been dropped out from the email chain. The last time I was in the email chain was on page 9. At the top, there I have from Eng Han to Tan Shao Yuen Sharon 19 November 2009, 10:21am and subsequent to that I was dropped out of the email. “

Mr. Chew went on to the next topic on his spiritual experience and history in CHC.

Topic – Eng Han spiritual experience and history in CHC

Your Honour, I’d just like to relate about my spiritual experience and history in CHC. I joined CHC in 1996. I was not a believer before that. It was my first church. When I joined CGC in 1996, the church congregation was only 1,300 people. By the end of that year, it had more than doubled to 3000 people. My wife and myself attended the church and got radically converted. We brought my wife’s sister, my wife brothers into the same church, and they got radically converted as well. In the first year when I was in church, I was totally impressed with City Harvest, with Kong Hee and Sun Ho, because it seemed like everything they did was successful. Not just church ministry, but everything went on from excellence to excellence. There was confidence in this church, that nothing was impossible. In that same year, 1996, my wife went through some deliverance encounters. And one of the persons who prayed for my wife was Sun Ho. She was the first person to pray for my wife, and she went through about five deliverance sessions in one year and she got set free. Our relationship with Sun Ho started in the first year we joined the church.

By 1997, we had got my wife’s siblings all saved. But at the end of 1997 Janet, my wife, brother Stephen, after he was converted, he died in a Silkair crash. But Kong Hee and Sun Ho, showed love and care, they sent a group of pastors, they sent Suraj, Aries, Karen and they sent a team down with us to Palembang.

And so we knew from there that Kong Hee and Sun are people who care, who have a heart. They conducted the funeral service. And that was the end of 1997, and after that I became a cell group leader in 1998. My wife’s mother had a cancer in the colon, but, because of the word of God that Kong Hee taught us, we had faith and we prayed for her mother, her mother got healed supernaturally. She didn’t have to go for the operation that the surgeon insisted she had to go, and she lived for more than 10 years after that. And that is why, your Honour, I choose to serve Kong Hee and Sun, and to give my life to the church.

When the building in Jurong West was ready in 2011, we had raised the Building Fund during the financial crisis, the whole church was proud of it. And, like I say, it seems like nothing CHC does can ever go wrong. So when 2002 Sun was commissioned by the board to crossover, and Kong Hee told us that he had a vision from God, and that there great man of God confirmed it for him – his mentors, by then I had been at the church for six to seven years. I experienced a lot in this church.

There’s no reason for me, your Honour, to doubt that this project will succeed as well. I have faith in God. I have faith in Kong Hee and Sun as well. And so the Crossover started in 2002, and in 2003, when Roland Poon complaint to the press, of course, my first reaction is he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. If he knows that God in this place, then he wouldn’t have said that. and true enough, when he confessed, he said that, “I’m so sorry, I think the devil has used me to destroy this church”. So after battling this, the press in 2003, because they were attacking Sun relentlessly, not just during Roland Poon but subsequent to that, there were articles about how Sun was wearing a red dress that was so revealing while she was attending a Hollywood event. I believe in her so much, I actually called up the editor, I can’t remember which paper and I scolded him. I said, “You don’t know who you are attacking. She is sent by God.” He threatened to write even more about her, and I said, “You go ahead. I dare you to write”. And thank God he didn’t write the next morning.

The reason why I fought for Kong and Sun is because I believe, your Honour, that God was in the house and the church. God was with them, I trusted, I never believed that the monies would be unwisely spent or recklessly spent, because these men had a vision from God and, surely, the holy spirit would guide him.

And so if I’m asked why didn’t I do due diligence and all that, no one does due diligence on his own spiritual father, the senior pastor. Was there a reason for me to doubt? Actually, yes, your Honour, honestly I should have doubted, by the time the amounts had flown up, the $24m. Perhaps I should. But with the experience I had with Kong Hee and Sun, and the spiritual authority and relationship, and the trust that I had developed in him, I think that was more overwhelming than my own natural mind. That if the budget is originally supposed to be $13m and it goes up by another 11, I think a normal fund manager would start to ask questions. But, yes, I didn’t.

But did I suspect that the monies would be spent unwisely? No, I didn’t. I thought the project was getting bigger, there’ll be more albums, more merchandise being sold, more concert tours and all that, and, surely, that would require a bigger budget. But with a bigger budget, the revenue would increase as well.

Your Honour, I’m now going on to the next section, which is my own state of mind.