Tan Ye Peng explained to the court that funding structure for the Crossover Project changed because the church leadership wanted to avoid “future trip-ups” like the one triggered by Roland Poon.
Heard in court: Tan and the team felt assured by their former legal counsel that they were exercising good governance. CN PHOTO: Daniel Poh
Yesterday in court, City Harvest Church pastor Tan Ye Peng calmly answered questions from four lawyers, one co-defendant and a prosecutor.
In the morning, after Kong Hee’s lawyer Aaron Lee underscored the point that Kong was reliant on his team—including Tan—to conduct the relevant checks with lawyers and auditors before proceeding with any part of the plan, Tan was cross-examined by Paul Seah, the counsel for finance manager Sharon Tan. Seah queried Tan on his client’s role in the bond redemption process.
Tan told the court that, in the transactions Sharon Tan did and minutes that she captured, she was just faithfully carrying out the plans approved by the church board with a clear conscience. Tan said that the finance manager did not exercise any initiative to make decisions. He added that neither she nor any of the other co-defendants thought that there was any wrongdoing.
It is the prosecution’s case that the process of using the Advance Rental Licensing Agreement and two tranches of Special Opportunity Fund to redeem the Xtron and Firna bonds is a round-tripping of church funds to create the false appearance that the bonds were redeemed.
Tan explained that when the redemption plan was shared with the board, the board members did not raise any issues–none of them thought that anything was wrong, that it was just a normal redemption exercise.
The next person to cross-examine Tan was Chew Eng Han, who is representing himself in this trial. Chew brought Tan back to the inception of the first Xtron bonds and questioned him on the state of mind they both had from the beginning.
Tan agreed with Chew that if Roland Poon had not made such a racket in 2003, the church would have continued to fund the Crossover Project directly. The structure of the funding was only changed because the team wanted to avoid such public backlash again.
It came up in court yesterday that Tan had given $400,000 of his personal money from the sale of his home to the Crossover. Today, Chew reminded Tan that he too, had sacrificed $150,000 of his own money when a KK Wong offered to help them secure a loan from a bank in Hong Kong. Wong absconded with Chew’s money.
It also came up during Chew’s cross-examination that, in 2007, Tan had written an email to Chew and Serina Wee with a suggestion to give a loan to Xtron from the building fund. Tan had also suggested getting consent from the executive members to put 10 percent of the next building fund into the general fund, and to use that amount for the Crossover Project.
Tan told the court that when he wrote the email, his intention was to ask Chew if this plan was feasible; he never thought that the church lending it funds to Xtron will be illegal because Xtron would be paying interest. Tan agreed with Chew that he believed that the members would have agreed to giving 10 percent of the building fund to the Crossover Project because it was a mission of the church and the members supported it fully. Eventually, there were about 30 couples who gave their building fund donations to the Crossover Project, Chew told the court. Tan agreed with Chew that when Tan approached these couples, they were not shocked and were willing to do so; they felt that it was also giving to God.
Tan also agreed with Chew that the church believed that the building fund campaign was not so much about a building as it was about building lives and saving souls. Likewise, he agreed with Chew that the Crossover Project was about the urgent need to engage the next generation of young people, and not about the senior pastor and his wife. In order to avoid this misunderstanding, the church had engaged the legal expertise of Jimmy Yim in 2003, the court heard. In email evidence, the court saw that Yim was tasked with helping to strengthen CHC’s legal and operational structure, to reduce the possibility of future sagas ala Roland Poon.
Tan told the court that he believed having Yim review the church’s constitution and board meeting minutes, among other job specifications, would help to ensure the soundness of CHC’s corporate governance.
Lead prosecutor Mavis Chionh maximized the short time she had left to begin her cross-examination, by diving straight into the issue of accountability between the accused and CHC’s auditors.
She charged that Tan had lied in his testimony when he said that it was auditor Foong Daw Ching who had advised him and the rest to not “paint the picture that CHC has full control” of Xtron but only “some control.”
Tan disagreed.
Court resumes Monday, 30 March at 9.30am
中文报道 – 城市丰收审讯：若非因方瑞家事件 教会会直接资助跨界计划
