City Harvest’s Kong Hee allowed to travel overseas

SINGAPORE: City Harvest Church founder Kong Hee, who has been accused of the misuse of church funds to help his wife Sun Ho’s music career, turned up at the Subordinate Courts on Monday afternoon.

In an email reply to queries, Kong’s lawyer, Edwin Tong said his client was in court to ask for permission to leave the country.

While it’s not known where Kong is going, Mr Tong confirmed that the court has granted the application and bail has been raised.

He did not say how much the bail was increased to.

Kong was last out on bail of S$500,000.

Kong is one of six members of the church to face charges in what’s believed to be the largest financial scandal to hit Singapore’s charity sector to date.

Last week, former finance manager of City Harvest Church, Serina Wee Gek Yin, was charged with 10 counts of criminal breach of trust and falsifying accounts.

Last month, ‪‪Kong and four members — Chew Eng Han, Sharon Tan, Tan Ye Peng and John Lam — were 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.

These were alleged to be "sham transactions" meant to mask the diversion of the church’s building fund, to finance the music career of Ho.

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".

— CNA/cc