On the final day of the Prosecution’s case, the defense sought to show that the auditors were fully aware of and satisfied with the accounting for the advance rental license agreement, among other things.
CN PHOTOS: Daniel Poh.
In this morning’s cross-examination with audit manager Foong Ai Fang, defense counsel for Serina Wee, Andre Maniam, went through the Xtron audit working papers for financial year 2009 produced by Baker Tilly’s office on Friday night. He proceeded to demonstrate to the court that the auditors not only were aware of various transactions involving CHC, Xtron and Firna, they had worked to account for the various entries on both sides.
The audit working papers showed that the audit team had considered how the advance rental agreement, and the amount of advance rental received, should be accounted for correctly.
One example raised by Maniam was that the audit team picked up the fact that the figure for the rental fee in October 2009 recorded in the City Harvest Church’s books was different from the amount recorded in the Xtron’s books. This was because Xtron had billed CHC for rental fees for October 2009, but since the Advance Rental License Agreement had taken effect, the invoice was cancelled.
He suggested that the audit team was looking at the correct figure to account for, not just in Xtron’s accounts, but that they also cross-checked against CHC account. Foong agreed with this.
Foong also confirmed that when the audit for Xtron FY2009 began in April 2010, there were no outstanding audit issues from the previous year’s audit. Neither were there previous experiences or incidents which called into question the integrity or competence of management, nor any history of unusual or complex transactions.
She confirmed these same three points in relation to the audit of CHC’s FY2009 accounts, for which she signed the Audit Plan Memorandum in October 2009. Following that audit, the auditors issued an unqualified report in 2010.
The defense counsel also established this morning that the email correspondence between the audit team and the clients have not been filed together with the audit working papers. That was why Foong had to go through her computer to print out correspondences, and when she found “a gap” in the period between emails, she had gone to Tiang Yii, the engagement partner for those years, who then printed out the emails.
Prosecution followed with a short re-exam which included an attempt by the DPP to question Xtron’s return of the full sum of advance rental to CHC—Foong replied she did not know if the sum had been returned as of 2013. Maniam, in a second cross-examination on this point, sought to show the court that it had been documented in a spreadsheet introduced by the prosecution that Xtron had in fact returned the full sum of the advance rental to CHC by October 2, 2010. The witness also concurred with Maniam that in fact, the spreadsheet the prosecution had brought up bore “no impact” on the audit of FY2009.
City News understands that court will resume at a later date when prosecution and defense will make their submissions to the judge, who will decide if the prosecution has made a case for the defense to answer.
中文报道 – CHC审讯：检方结束该诉讼案件
