Kong Hee resisted City Harvest Church’s direct funding of Sun Ho’s music career: Chew Eng Han

By Jeanette Tan | Yahoo Newsroom – 

Former City Harvest Church member Chew Eng Han said he wanted the Singapore megachurch to channel its funds directly toward the production of singer Ho Yeow Sun's music albums instead of "discreetly", the way founder Kong Hee preferred.
 
Chew, alongside Kong and four other church leaders, is on trial for misappropriating more than $50 million in church building funds to finance Kong's wife Sun Ho's secular singing career.
 
The former head of City Harvest's investment arm AMAC Capital Partners resumed his cross-examination of Kong, who on Friday took the witness stand for the fifth day.
 
Chew, who is representing himself, strove to show that his preference was for church funds to be used openly and directly for the Crossover Project — the church's initiative to use Ho's secular music as an instrument to spread the gospel.
 
"I said there was nothing wrong with using church funds to directly fund the Crossover project," said Chew on Friday, adding in court that he had told Kong this in a meeting with auditor Foong Daw Ching in the aftermath of an incident in 2003 where former church member Roland Poon made a series of accusations against the church. Kong, however, said he preferred not to do so.
 
Asked for his reasons behind his resistance to direct funding of the Crossover project, Kong said he felt the Crossover project would fail if Ho is seen as being backed by the church. Outsiders would have the "misconception" that "Sun's popularity was not real", and that the "church was using its funds to promote one of its members' career", he said.
 
If the church was funding Ho's work, she would be seen as a gospel singer, argued Kong — therefore she must succeed as a secular singer with secular songs, on secular labels, for the project to work and to win over the public at large.
 
Responding to this, Chew produced an email sent by then-fellow board member John Lam to himself and senior pastor Tan Ye Peng, which showed Lam's equal interest in the church directly using its monies to pay for Ho's album production.
 
Citing the "strong mandate" that he believed City Harvest's members had given in support of the Crossover project, Lam suggested the idea in his email to Chew and Tan, explaining that this would resolve the issue of transfers of funds and "withdrawals". Asked what this referred to, Kong confirmed that it meant the withdrawing of monies donated to City Harvest's building fund and channelling of them to the Crossover project.
 
Chew also showed the court his response, which was "I am open to this", saying he did not sound 100 per cent enthusiastic because he already knew that Kong was against the idea.
 
"Because you were my senior pastor, I deferred to your wisdom and decision," Chew added.

https://sg.news.yahoo.com/kong-hee-resisted-city-harvest-church-s-direct-funding-of-sun-ho-s-music-career--chew-eng-han-094406995.html