1) "the defence pointed out that there was no breach in the church's constitution when the Building Fund was used for the investments."
2) "it was always clear the church's building fund monies were used to produce Ms Ho's music albums and that the auditors signed off on the various audits."
3) they "also stressed that no church money was lost."
However, the court also heard that "the information which the auditors based their work on came from the accused."
As someone following this case, this is what me thinks of these information, looking at various public information available:
1) "No Case To Answer" Reason #1: "the defence pointed out that there was no breach in the church's constitution when the Building Fund was used for the investments."
After reading through the revised Nov 2009 constitution of CHC, Article II clause 6 to 9 satisfied the requirement, although I do not understand how the role of Sun Ho singing and dancing to tunes like "China Wine", "Bang Bang" and "Kill Bill" aims to meet the objects stated in Article II clauses 1 through 5. Well, who am I to judge? Noteworthy anyhow...
Contrasting the 2 periods of the Crossover Project, the latter years (2007 and beyond, above) seem to have much more messed up inconsistencies as compared to the early Crossover phase (2002-2006) below. These mandarin songs looks like a better fit to fulfill objects listed in Articles 1 to 5 stated in the CHC Constitution, and the well known target market of Asia, especially China:
2) "No Case To Answer" Reason #2: "it was always clear the church's building fund monies were used to produce Ms Ho's music albums and that the auditors signed off on the various audits."
I'm not too sure about this - based on the AGM recording link from my previous blog post (Is Xtron and City Harvest Church Related?), it is not so clear that the church building fund monies were used to produce Ms Ho's music albums - the executive members present in that meeting of 28 March 2010 also does not seem to be aware of church funding and support because they only just had a non-binding straw poll to provide full funding and manpower support for the Crossover Project:
According to Dr Victor Lim Fei, then an Executive Member of CHC in 2010 and currently one of it's Board Members (1:39:30), "Pastor I just want to say as you already mentioned just now, Sun's embodiment of the Cultural Mandate is the collective vision of CHC - everyone of us here in this place. As such, I would like to perhaps recommend the full support of the church be excapaded to include whatever financial and manpower resources we can muster for the work that she's doing"
Furthermore, in the same recording, the role and funding of Sun Ho up to the date of the straw poll was clearly communicated by Pastor Kong to the executive members (1:21:06):
"On the blog forums, Xtron is accused of behind Sun's singing career... all right... now in 2002 when Sun started out in the music industry, recording companies would sign artiste for years and exercise full control over them... we wanted Sun to have a management company that would allow her to have the flexibility to continue serving the vision of the church especially in her humanitarian efforts whenever she's needed by the church". (paraphrased, refer to the recording) Quotes the Taiwanese pop-group, FIR as his disciples and how challenging it was to get them to perform in the Asian Conference but was not allowed by their recording company who wanted a a high performance fee ($60,000 for 2 songs). In the end they had to take personal leave to perform and risk being sued for performing in the Asian Conference.
Personally, I love FIR!
"So... I mean... Sun is not just a new girl starting out... she's... a co-founder... you know... she's... my wife! She co-founded the church. So... during the AGM of 27 April 2003, together with our auditor, we informed our members very clearly... very clearly... that Sun's Crossover Project was sponsored by the Hanafi family and other various individuals. NOT BY CITY HARVEST. If you remembered, we even showed a video... that was made very clear back then. So... how is Xtron's relationship with Sun? Kar Weng, can you please from the horse's mouth tell the people" (you can continue with my previous blog posting)
At least we know from the recording that it was very clear that the church's building fund were NOT USED to produce Sun ho's music albums and singing career! This recording was dated on 28 March 2010 - so we know any deviation is a major discrepancy from what was revealed in court.
But the auditors signed off the various audit - how do we explain that? First off, Foong Daw Ching claimed that the statement was prepared for him to read (source) but he could not remember the person. Please forgive his amnesia. Following that, other auditors taking the stand also reported conflicting versions of their auditing experience. One of them, Mr Sim Guan Seng says that the bonds appeared to be doubtful (source). Too technical - I'll leave it to the judge - but looking at some of the accused's emails and letters which were backdated and showing deliberate attempts to hide certain facts from the auditor, I do have my personal doubts. Moving on...
3) "No Case To Answer" Reason #3: "they also stressed that no church money was lost."
I am not sure if this will hold any water because funds were indeed taken and used. Put it this way - if - supposedly investigations had not begun in 2010, would the money been returned? We probably will never know. And if the funds taken to return the money was borrowed to fill the gap, then it still leaves one gaping hole in the financials, and members' money will still eventually have to be used.
IMHO, lame lame lame. Good try nevertheless - there was a case example where the perpetrator got away with a lighter sentence because he confessed early and made full restitution:
SPH senior executive Peter Khoo fined S$100k for corruption and CBT
Not sure how this will turn out:
Well, it's the judge's call.
4) "Case To Answer" Reason #1: the information which the auditors based their work on came from the accused.
As I have written in my previous blog post, establishing the relationship between CHC and Xtron is more important to understand this complicated crossover guarantee relationship. This is the interesting part where the prosecution have shown many paper trial of attempts to mislead the auditors, such as (refer to source for context):
He added: "The only problem of using the word 'control' is that if it gets to the auditors, they may get ultra-conservative and say we own Xtron, and therefore we need to consolidate (the two). So we need to find a balance between what we tell our AGM - annual general meeting - (they want full control) and what we tell auditors (we don't want them to think we control Xtron)."
In another set of e-mail messages in 2008, Wee also told church founder Kong Hee, Tan and Chew that she had received advice from a fellow church member: "We can talk about Xtron to the members in the (extraordinary general meeting) but don't minute down everything. Just minute down necessary portions so as to not show too close a relationship or control over Xtron."
"Eng Han drew a diagram... The Firna bonds were part of the diagram. To me, the overall purpose was because the auditors of CHC were not comfortable with the bonds, that's why there was a need to restructure the bonds and the debt."
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The lead auditor testifying in the trial of the six leaders of the City Harvest Church today (Jan 24) said he would not have signed off on the church’s accounts if he had been aware of the discussions among the accused and would have raised more questions. (source)
The lead auditor testifying in the trial of the six leaders of the City Harvest Church today (Jan 24) said he would not have signed off on the church’s accounts if he had been aware of the discussions among the accused and would have raised more questions. (source)
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Whatever it is, I'm glad that this trial has finally reached a new crescendo - the defense filing no case to answer is definitely a fresh twist. Nevertheless, it'll be interesting to celebrate Birthday together at the docks in August.
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