“(It) was a serious agreement between Xtron and CHC. It was not something that was done at the last minute, Your Honour, to redeem the bonds. Never in my mind was the advance rental all about redemption,” he told the court.
Chew is among six church leaders, including CHC founder Kong Hee, accused of misusing S$24 million of church-building funds in Xtron to boost the pop music career of Ms Ho Yeow Sun, Kong’s wife.
Another S$26.6 million of church funds was then allegedly circulated through complex transactions — which the prosecution refers to as “round-tripping” — to clear the bonds off the church’s books to throw auditors off the scent.
One of these methods involved paying Xtron advance rent — through a licensing agreement worth S$46 million inked on October 2009 — for premises the church could use for its services.
Some of the money from the agreement was used to redeem the Xtron bonds, but Chew described their redemption as “secondary”. This was because he “did not think they were sham bonds and thought (Ms Ho’s) album sales will eventually come in and the bonds will be redeemed”, said Chew, who took the stand for the fourth day in the long-running trial.
He added that the funds were used to redeem the bonds at the church auditor’s “insistence”.
Chew said he had initially been fully supportive of the church’s Crossover project, aimed at reaching out to non-Christians through Ms Ho’s secular music. He even made a joint contribution of S$40,000 with a fellow church member for her travelling expenses in 2006.
“I told Pastor Kong that we are honoured to play our small part in the great work that God is doing through Sun, because I always believed that the Crossover was a work of God. It couldn’t turn into a conspiracy.”
Chew added that he had “laid down (his) life for the church” since joining CHC in 1995 and had given about S$600,000 in tithes and donations.
He said such “sacrifices” continued even when he was suffering from depression between 2007 and 2009, the time when the alleged conspiracy to cause losses to CHC was hatched.
Chew also shared a three-page spiritual journal with the court, where he related the multiple trials his family members had been going through during the same period, such as his wife’s near-death from deep vein thrombosis and when the United States subprime mortgage crisis caused him to be riddled with losses.
“Despite my condition, I put in all for the Crossover and property,” said Chew, who left CHC in 2013.
“I thought God was using me for His kingdom ... every day I did it for God and for Kong Hee, whom I thought was a man of God.”
Earlier this week, Chew told the court he only realised in recent years that the track record of Ms Ho’s singing career was “falsified” and that Kong had chosen not to disclose the lackadaisical progress of the Crossover project.
Kong’s lawyer Edwin Tong will cross-examine Chew tomorrow.
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