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[h=2]CHC case spotlights the need to regulate big charities[/h]
June 30th, 2012 |
Author: Contributions
City Harvest Church (CHC)
In March 2010 before CHC was investigated by CAD, I wrote about my concerns surrounding mega-churches like City Harvest Church [Mega-Churches, Mega-Finances]. I looked at the CHC 2008 financial statement and found that they used $2.9M of their funds for charity but paid out $9.2M in allowance and salary to staff. $9.2M is enough pay to pay 100 people $92K per annum. CHC is registered as a charity but the amount of funds used for salaries and allowance was 3 times more than the amount used for charity.
It is unwise for CHC people uninvolved in the alleged crimes to put themselves and their church on a collision course with the authorities. While they may want to support Kong Hee as a friend in his time of need, they should be careful when dealing with the facts surrounding the case. If they continue to demonstrate a denial of the facts, the outcomes can show that their faith is blind and the credibility of their church can be destroyed and the church may not be able to recover from this setback. Kong Hee has hired one of the best lawyers in town. Justice should be allowed to run its course and all evidence surrounding the matter will emerge in the coming days.
A pastor during a sermon I attended a few years back said, “Do not put your faith in me.”. He went to tell the congregation not to put their faith in their children, their parents, their spouses and their leaders. His message was that human beings are never perfect. They are always tempted to sin and not matter how strongly virtuous they have been in the past, they can succumb to various temptations. This is an enduring piece of wisdom from the Bible we should always remember when we deal with systems that involve human beings. When there is a lot of money involved, full transparency, accountability and sufficient check and balance are the best ways to safeguard the system from fraud and abuse. We cannot trust what we cannot see fully and never trust people who keep black boxes in accounting.
A few years back, a businessman who was a devout Christian suspected something was not right at CHC and wrote a letter to the Straits Times. He was forced to withdraw his allegations and apologise when they threatened him with a defamation lawsuit [Link]. This was also what happened in NKF – use of threats to silence critics. When there are questions surround the accounts of these charities, they responded with threats of lawsuits instead of greater transparency. When people refuse to tell you the numbers, they have something to hide and history tells us we should continue to probe because there is almost always something there they don’t want you to see. For Singaporeans there is something very large and very opaque and we have been told to have faith and trust in the people managing it without full access to numbers.
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Lucky Tan
* Lucky Tan is an avid online blogger since 2005. He likes to study the thoughts of Singapore leaders and the laws of Singapore. He blogs at http://singaporemind.blogspot.com.
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In March 2010 before CHC was investigated by CAD, I wrote about my concerns surrounding mega-churches like City Harvest Church [Mega-Churches, Mega-Finances]. I looked at the CHC 2008 financial statement and found that they used $2.9M of their funds for charity but paid out $9.2M in allowance and salary to staff. $9.2M is enough pay to pay 100 people $92K per annum. CHC is registered as a charity but the amount of funds used for salaries and allowance was 3 times more than the amount used for charity.
“Now when Jesus heard these things, he said unto him, Yet lackest thou one thing: sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me. ” – Luke 18:22
We now know the problems at CHC run deeper than the lack of spending on charity. Money is alleged to have been siphoned off to fund ventures in the pop music industry – $23M of funds used for this purpose. CHC is just one of a long list of charities that have run into problems since the NKF scandal broke in 2005. Following the scandals, a set of guidelines was issued for the charity sector [Link]. The Singapore govt, however, continues to use the “light touch” to regulate this sector, however, given the rising magnitude of wrongdoings and alleged wrongdoings, this “light touch” approach may have to be limited to smaller charities. While there is fear that regulation will stifle the growth of this sector, it has to be balanced against the potential damage caused by big cases such as the CHC which was collecting donations from 40,000 followers many of whom made personal sacrifices to donate to the church.
“It has been suggested that the church has been cheated of S$50 million. This is not accurate. The S$24 million, which went to investment bonds, was returned to the church in full, with interest. We didn’t lose the S$24 million, nor did we lose ‘another S$26.6m’ as alleged. The church did not lose any funds in the relevant transactions, and no personal profit was gained by the individuals concerned.” – CHC Pastor Zulkarnain, 28 June 2012 [Link]
The COC and CAD investigated this case for 2 years to gather evidence before the case goes to court. Putting a charismatic pastor with a following for tens of thousands in court is not something they will do unless it is completely necessary and there is compelling evidence to go to trial. A mistake here will end the careers of senior officers involved in the case. This is very unlikely that what Pastor Zulkarmain said above is true because it is very easy for the church accountants to prove what he said to satisfy the investigators if the money is there.
It is unwise for CHC people uninvolved in the alleged crimes to put themselves and their church on a collision course with the authorities. While they may want to support Kong Hee as a friend in his time of need, they should be careful when dealing with the facts surrounding the case. If they continue to demonstrate a denial of the facts, the outcomes can show that their faith is blind and the credibility of their church can be destroyed and the church may not be able to recover from this setback. Kong Hee has hired one of the best lawyers in town. Justice should be allowed to run its course and all evidence surrounding the matter will emerge in the coming days.
A pastor during a sermon I attended a few years back said, “Do not put your faith in me.”. He went to tell the congregation not to put their faith in their children, their parents, their spouses and their leaders. His message was that human beings are never perfect. They are always tempted to sin and not matter how strongly virtuous they have been in the past, they can succumb to various temptations. This is an enduring piece of wisdom from the Bible we should always remember when we deal with systems that involve human beings. When there is a lot of money involved, full transparency, accountability and sufficient check and balance are the best ways to safeguard the system from fraud and abuse. We cannot trust what we cannot see fully and never trust people who keep black boxes in accounting.
A few years back, a businessman who was a devout Christian suspected something was not right at CHC and wrote a letter to the Straits Times. He was forced to withdraw his allegations and apologise when they threatened him with a defamation lawsuit [Link]. This was also what happened in NKF – use of threats to silence critics. When there are questions surround the accounts of these charities, they responded with threats of lawsuits instead of greater transparency. When people refuse to tell you the numbers, they have something to hide and history tells us we should continue to probe because there is almost always something there they don’t want you to see. For Singaporeans there is something very large and very opaque and we have been told to have faith and trust in the people managing it without full access to numbers.
.
Lucky Tan
* Lucky Tan is an avid online blogger since 2005. He likes to study the thoughts of Singapore leaders and the laws of Singapore. He blogs at http://singaporemind.blogspot.com.
.
Join our TRE facebook page here: http://www.facebook.com/TREmeritus
