City Harvest Church Scandal: Church to Not Use Funds to Support Kong Hee's Defense
The Channel News Asia reports City Harvest Church are not able to fund the pastor's court cases. Read below on the details:
The Commissioner of Charities (COC) said it has informed City Harvest Church that the church or its employees should not be involved in raising funds for the legal expenses of their founder and five others embroiled in the court case.
This comes amid reports that several members of the church are said to be making donations privately.
The COC had earlier issued a Restriction Order to the Board of City Harvest Church (CHC) to restrict CHC from paying the legal fees of the six accused persons or setting a specific fund for this purpose.
They are not allowed to enter into transactions relating to payment of services to the suspended individuals without the approval of the COC.
CHC's founder Kong Hee and five others have been charged with misappropriating money from the church's building fund.
Some S$24 million was allegedly transferred from the church's building fund account to two companies as bond investments.
A further sum of S$26.6 million was allegedly used to create the impression that the sham bonds had been fully redeemed, a process called round-tripping.We like how the COC is standing up against using funds to support a pastor and his cohorts who legally used funds by the church. It only makes sense.
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